Coba Ritsema

Jacoba Johanna (Coba) Ritsema (26 June 1876, Haarlem – 13 December 1961, Amsterdam), was a portrait painter from the Netherlands.

Biography Jacoba, or Coba, was born in 1876 as the daughter of the book printer Coenraad Ritsema and his wife Jeanette (Jannetje) Moulijn in an artistic family with one sister and two brothers. In her family there were already a few known artists - her grandfather Jacob Ritsema was an amateur painter, her father was a lithograph and the painter and etcher Simon Moulijn was a nephew of her mother.

Her brother was studying at the Academy of Düsseldorf since his 15th year, also the age when Coba also was allowed to experience herself in the arts. However, for a girl it was not realistic to go abroad at such young age, and she was taught drawing at the Haarlemse School voor Kunstnijverheid from 1891 until 1893. Her sister Catherine tried to become a pianist (and later became violist) and her brother Johan studied lithography like his father.

While focusing on still lifes and portraits, Ritsema's works were described in 1947 by critic Johan van Eikeren as if they could have been produced by a man - something that was considered to be a compliment in those years. Her work was usually well sold, although she was not such a master that she could afford to refuse to make compromises. In her portraits there is a clear difference between those of her relatives and direct connections, which are painted rather realistic, and those of models - which are usually more impressionist.

Coba was close with her brother Jacob, and when he suddenly died in 1943, she took that hard - Jacob was also a painter after all, and she consulted him a lot on her work. In 1957 she won the Rembrandt prize - a prize awarded by the city of Amsterdam once every five years. At old age she remained active although her studio wasn't easy to reach for a woman at age like herself, being on the fourth floor - she had chairs placed on every floor the way up, to be able to rest on each floor while she climbed. In her final years she lived in Pro Sinecure at the Amsterdam Vondelstraat, where she died from her weak heart in 1961.

She was a member of the Pulchri Studio in the Hague, as well as being a member of the . Works of Ritsema are on display in the Teylers Museum and Mesdag van Calcar, but she also had a solo exposition in the Frans Hals Museum.