More then three centuries passed before Vermeer became recognised as a great artist. His most famous painting, Girl with a Pearl Earring, is now one of the most popular pictures in the world. This iconic portrait has recently returned home to the newly reopened Mauritshuis, The Hague, following two years of exhibition stops around the world. Extraordinary to think that a painter neglected for centuries should not find his true place as one of the...
Painting had rarely come easily to Henri Matisse, the Fauve. Throughout his career, he questioned, repainted, and re-evaluated his work. In 1905, Henri Matisse left the dusty heat of Paris to spend the summer at Coullioure; a small fishing village on the southern coast of France. For some time he had felt disillusioned with his painting. Up until then, Matisse had been influenced by the Impressionists, but he began to find their art “a completely objective...
A salute to Lucian Freud, the great British artist, as he approaches his ninetieth year. Lucian Freud, now in his eighty-ninth year, is widely regarded as one of our most important contemporary figurative painters. Primarily a painter of people, Lucian Freud has concentrated during his lifetime on intimate portraits, especially of family, friends, lovers and children and says that it is a person’s ‘aura’ that sparks one’s excitement and is his starting point. From an...
