Robet Noortman was born on March 5, 1946 in Heemstede, the Netherlands. He was the son of a policeman, and left school at the age of 16. He started his first art gallery near Maastricht in 1958 and later helped to found Pictura, which became the Maastricht Fine Arts Fair. In June of 2006 he sold his business Noortman Master Paintings to Sotheby's. He died in January 2007.