Biography

According to Houbraken, he learned to paint from Hendrik Martenszoon Sorgh

Hendrik Martenszoon Sorgh

Hendrik Martenszoon Sorgh , was a Dutch Golden Age painter of genre works.-Biography:He was a pupil of David Teniers the Younger and Willem Pieterszoon Buytewech. Sorgh painted mostly interiors with peasants. His kitchen interiors feature elaborate still lifes...

. After a trip through France he returned to the Netherlands and became a pupil of Adriaen Brouwer

Adriaen Brouwer

Adriaen Brouwer was a Flemish genre painter active in Flanders and the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century.-Biography:...

, whose style he copied the rest of his life. He joined the Guild of St. Luke in Dordrecht in 1648.

Houbraken claimed he made his acquaintance in 1674. This is somewhat hard to believe, since Diepraam died four years before that, but may explain why Houbraken had such a low opinion of him. Diepraam became a popular painter of small genre works, and sold many of these himself informally in taverns, where Houbaken clearly felt he also spent all of the proceeds on brandywine. Houbraken reports that by the end of his life he had gone out of fashion and tried selling his services as a painter with his painting box door to door, with little success. Houbraken's biggest criticism of Diepraam was not so much his lifestyle, but from what he claimed was poor brushwork. In a rare comparison to the work of Frans Hals

Frans Hals

Frans Hals was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He is notable for his loose painterly brushwork, and helped introduce this lively style of painting into Dutch art. Hals was also instrumental in the evolution of 17th century group portraiture.-Biography:Hals was born in 1580 or 1581, in Antwerp...

, Houbraken claimed that Diepraam's style later in life reflected his lifestyle, and his brush strokes did not even melt together, but were loose lines without connection. Though Hals changed his style with disconnected brush strokes during his later years (this is what impressionist painters such as Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...

 admired the most about him), Houbraken claims he did this as a great master of the art, while Diepraam was just drunk. Perhaps Houbraken met some drunk claiming to be Diepraam himself, and who tried to sell Diepraam paintings after his death in 1674. This would explain why Houbraken formed his bad opinion, since like many of his contemporaries, Diepraam fell on hard times when the economic downturn spoiled the market.

According to the RKD his pupil was Matthijs Wulfraet

Matthijs Wulfraet

Mathijs Wulfraet , was a Dutch Golden Age painter.-Biography:According to Houbraken he was born on New Year's Eve between midnight and one in the morning. His father, who came from Germany and was a language teacher and doctor, wanted his son to follow in his footsteps and sent him to Latin school...

. His paintings were quite popular, and are generally small interior tavern scenes with peasants drinking or smoking. Houbraken was much more complimentary over Diepraam in his biography of his pupil Wulfraet, claiming his works sold well in Arnhem

Arnhem

Arnhem is a city and municipality, situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland and located near the river Nederrijn as well as near the St. Jansbeek, which was the source of the city's development. Arnhem has 146,095 residents as one of the...

and he was a good teacher for the young boy.