Louise van der Veen was born as the daughter of the well-known Amsterdam neurologist Adrianus van der Chijs and Louise de Bruijn. The famous feminist Anna Maria Margaretha Storm – van der Chijs is related to Louise. Her parents wanted her to study French after high school. Louise herself preferred the National Academy of Visual Arts. There she met Gerrit van der Veen, whom she married in 1931. The couple had two daughters, Loukie and Gerda.
At the Rijksacademie Louise van der Chijs and Gerrit van der Veen had lessons from Professor Jan Bronner (1881-1972), among others. He has given new impulses and a new direction to Dutch sculpture, after the strict 19th century academicism of his predecessor, Bart van Hove. Bronner became the teacher of a large new group of sculptors at the Rijksacademie, to whom he passed on his predilection for a rational craftsmanship. French sculptors Aristide Maillol and Charles Despiau were also great examples at the time. Characteristic for their style is the reduction of the form, which leads to pure expression.
When her family expanded, Louise gave up sculpting due to time constraints. She did help her husband with, among other things, his commissions for plaques. During the war, identity cards were forged with many others to prevent people from being deported. Gerrit did not consider the effect of the false identity cards to be large enough and came up with the idea of carrying out an attack on the population register. The attack went reasonably well, the desired effect was achieved, but a little later all those involved were arrested, except Gerrit. He then tried to free some of his arrested friends from prison on the Weteringschans. In this action he is shot himself. Badly injured, he manages to escape, but is eventually found a few weeks later at his hiding place. Louise receives a suicide note from him, written on pencil smuggled in prison. This shows that he also has a relationship with Guusje Rübsaam. A large number of works in the exhibition are owned by Guusje Rübsaam and Gerrit Jan Wolffensperger. Gerrit van der Veen is shot in the dunes together with his friends. The two daughters go from hiding address to hiding address. Louise van der Veen can only visit them occasionally, because it is too dangerous. After the war Louise van der Veen was distinguished for her merits for the resistance with the resistance memorial cross. She became a board member of the Foundation Artists Resistance 1942-1945, which was established immediately after the war, and has remained that for about 40 years.
After the war, Louise van der Veen-van der Chijs, in addition to her management work for the Foundation Artists Resistance 1942-1945, mainly focused on photographing sculptors in their studio. She has also taken countless beautiful photos of sculptures scattered around the country. These photos have become a true monument to Dutch sculpture. That she chose photography she explained herself by the fact that she also drew and painted very photographically and that was why it was a logical choice.
(source: https://www.zomerdijkstraatretrospectief.nl/zdr_l_vanderveen.htm)