Biography of Hendrik Willem Mesdag

Hendrik Willem Mesdag is born on February 23, 1831 in Groningen as the fourth child in the Mennonite family of Klaas Mesdag, who turned to banker builds walls and politically active, and Johanna Wilhelmina van Giffen, which consists of a family of silversmiths. Because of his talent for drawing may Hendrik Willem together with his older brother Taco on drawing lesson at Cornelis Bernardus Buijs (1808-1872) and then at Johannes Hinderikus Egenberger (1822-1897), who as a Director at the Academy of Visual Arts Minerva in Groningen and navigation. His work is on international exhibitions, among others to Munich (1879 and 1883), London (1884), Berlin (1886), Paris (1870, 1889 and 1900), Chicago (1892), Florence (1896), St. Louis (1904) and Barcelona (1907) crowned. It is also a great number of distinctions – as with his seventieth birthday the promotion to Commander of the order of the Netherlands lion – and honorary memberships to turn cases. After his help and stay Sientje died in 1909, and his friend Jozef Israëls in 1911, he dies after years of illness on 10 July 1915 in the Hague.