1. Karel Ooms was a Belgian painter of portraits, genre paintings and history paintings.
19 Facts About Karel Ooms
1. 2.
Karel Ooms was known for his Orientalist scenes and Oriental landscapes.
3.
Karel Ooms was born in Dessel as the youngest son of a large peasant family.
4.
Karel Ooms painted two altarpieces for the local church Saint Nicolas, to express his gratitude to his city.
5.
Karel Ooms settled as an independent artist in Antwerp around 1871.
6.
Karel Ooms quickly established a reputation as a portrait painter.
7.
Karel Ooms gained particular recognition with two large paintings, which he made for the criminal courtroom of the Antwerp Courthouse.
8.
Karel Ooms's renown extended across the borders as Karel Ooms won awards for his oeuvre in Prague, Amsterdam, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Chicago.
9.
Karel Ooms made many travels in Europe and the Middle East.
10.
Karel Ooms's wife was well-off and an avid art lover and collector.
11.
Karel Ooms's remains were transferred to Antwerp and interred at the Moretus cemetery in Wilrijk.
12.
Karel Ooms worked in various genres including portrait painting, history painting, landscape painting and genre painting.
13.
Karel Ooms is mainly known for his Orientalist and genre paintings and portraits.
14.
Portraits make up about one third of Karel Ooms' known output of 220 works.
15.
One of the reasons of the success of Karel Ooms' picture was that the situation of the small minority of Protestants in Catholic Belgium of the late 19th century was seen as having parallels with their situation in the 16th century.
16.
In 1885, Karel Ooms made a reduced copy of the work, probably for his own use.
17.
Karel Ooms painted many more history paintings which showed his interest in the 16th century history of his country.
18.
Karel Ooms further painted a few works such as Dreaming in the harem, which reflected the contemporary interest in the theme of the harem and the odalisque in Orientalism.
19.
Karel Ooms painted many genre scenes, some of which doubled as family portraits.