“…when I paint, I lose track of time and I step outside myself to a certain degree. While making a series of paintings I can’t even remember what happens during the days.“

For an artist who paints without a preconceived plan Harry Markusse is very well organised. On his ‘quests for a pleasing relationship between colour, form and space’ he makes sure that circumstances are such -in time and space- that the right conditions are present. This way he can afford to lose track of ti...

Jacob Ydema (1901–1990) was a versatile artist. His oeuvre consists of murals and stained glass in more than thirty churches and other buildings, over 200 paintings and drawings, as well as works in textiles and on metal. Ydema is considered one of the most important representatives of the Dutch so-called Expressionist Baroque style of the period between the two world wars. His artistic program, however, soon departed from the naturalistic rendering of his subjects. Over the years he develo...

Matthijs Maris initially acquired fame as a painter in the style of the The Hague School, just like his famous brothers Jacob and Willem. However, over the years he abandoned this realistic palette for more introverted and symbolic themes and started portraying dreamy children, young people on the verge of adulthood, fairytale figures and mythical landscapes using an increasingly smudged painting technique. Even in his own time, Maris was admired at home and abroad by collectors and artists i...

Elke Andreas Boon's art explores a duality of unruly fragility and reflection, tackling existential themes like religion, gender, and power structures. Her work, rooted in art tradition, undergoes subtle transformations, creating new contexts and combining brutal questioning with surreal humor. Boon’s oeuvre, spanning over twenty-five years, is noted for its relevance and aesthetic richness, addressing universal issues like identity and loneliness. S.M.A.K director Philippe Van Cauteren pra...

“We geven de schuld graag aan iemand anders: God,

het kwaad, het lot. Het kwaad bestaat niet; er is geen

God; de schuld ligt altijd bij ons. Het is onze zwakheid;

het is de verdorvenheid van onze geest en ziel die de

problemen schept waarmee we in onze samenleving

te maken krijgen. Het gebrek aan onderwijs is de

voornaamste factor die ons in de diepten van die

verdrietige momenten doet belanden. Ons gebrek aan

betrokkenheid leidt tot die rampzalige gebeurtenissen.

Van dictatuur over oorlog ...

Jan Schoonhoven (1914-1994) became world-famous with his sculptural reliefs and works on paper. For nearly 40 years, Schoonhoven worked on developing his reliefs (made of papier-mâché, paper and cardboard) alongside his job as a civil servant at the Dutch Post Office.

For the first time, this monograph places Jan Schoonhoven in an international context, as an active and influential player in the European post-war developments in art. The early years are covered in detail: the influences of, ...

This monograph brings together Rody Luton’s artistic practice in its diversity: painting, photography, drawing and mixed media. Covering three decades, it invites a dialogue across time as well as mediums. Rody Luton.Time Encircled presents her oeuvre as a journey of exploration, as if wandering in a landscape, encountering both human-made and natural environments.

Nature is the vital inspiration. In Rody Luton’s own words (from the Preface): ‘I reach out to the natural world and engag...

De artistieke praktijk van Willem Boel (°1983, Sint-Niklaas; woont en werkt in Gent) valt binnen het uitgebreide veld van

de beeldhouwkunst en bevat monumenten/structuren, kinetische sculpturen, gigantische rekwisieten en decors. Boel thematiseert de beeldhouwkunst als performance, als architectuur, als machinerie. De meeste werken uit zijn oeuvre circuleren door elkaar. Elk werk verbergt letterlijk de andere werken en zet ze voort, waardoor een voortdurende stroom van materiële elementen ...

Unique view on the 'tronies' in art from the Netherlands

Our fascination for faces transcends eras and cultures. Turning Heads – Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer highlights a remarkable genre in painting to which little attention has so far been paid: tronies or study heads, which were intended first and foremost to depict an emotion or a character trait. Since the model’s identity did not matter, painters could truly go to town with these heads. Tronies were drawn and painted by some of the...

Exclusive insight into the finest hundred masterpieces from the permanent collection of the renewed KMSKA

The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) has reopened after several years of major renovation. It is home to an especially varied collection of art that runs to more than nine thousand items: paintings, sculptures, assemblages, drawings and prints from the fourteenth to the twenty-first century.

Old Flemish masters like Jan van Eyck, Quinten Massys and Peter Paul Rubens feature along...