Barenda School by Cornelis KOEKKOEKA [1803-1862] , Oaks by the Spillway

In 1845 he received a commission from the King of the Netherlands to produce a series of paintings. He traveled extensively in Belgium, France and Germany, and was particularly fond of the Rhine and Moselle valleys. In 1841 he founded the School of Painting in Kleve, which trained, among others, Barend's brother Marinus Adrianus Koekkoek (1807-1870),Alexander Joseph Daiwaille (1818-1888), Johann Klombeck (1815-1893), Louwrens Hanedoes (1822-1905) and Frederik Marinus Kruseman (1816-1882).

He exhibited his works several times at the Paris Salon, for which he received two gold medals in 1840 and 1843, including one for a landscape for the Prince of Orange, later Willem II. He was a member of the Academy in St. Petersburg and Rotterdam. He successfully created landscapes capturing the atmosphere of wooded valleys bathed in sunlight; he was widely regarded as the most outstanding painter of Romantic landscapes of his time. His works can be seen in museums: Koekkoek-Haus in Kleve, Amsterdam, Anvers, Bremen, Cologne, Dijon, Leipzig, Nantes, Rotterdam, Sheffield and Wrocław.