The Mauritshuis museum in The Hague is one of my favorites, and in that museum my favorite artist is Gerard ter Borch (1617-1681)
The painting on the left and the one in the middle flank 'The girl with the pearl earring by Vermeer. Also beautiful ofcourse, but Ter Borch moves me every time.
Not only for the way he paints the pleats in the different fabrics so brilliantly, or for his everyday subjects, but also for the endearing turn-up noses of his subjects
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Dame Laura Knight (1877-1970) was a British painter who painted mainly landscapes and portraits.
She is considered to be a British impressionist.
John Burningham (1936-2019) was an illustrator and writer of children's books.
Often when you look at older books, you see that imagery can age quite quickly.
Burninghams work however, albeit of its time, has remained beautifully fresh.
I love the works by the painter Tessa Newcomb (Suffolk 1955)
She depicts ordinary daily life, like on allotments, and paints it in beautiful soft colors.
This is how you want the world to look.
Anders Zorn (1860-1920) was a Swedish impressionist. He was a painter, sculptor and etcher.
Best known perhaps for his portraits, he also depicted daily life in Sweden.
At the moment I'm not working on the scale I am used to, as I am painting big panels in acrylics, a 'parade' for the new Koos Meinderts School in The Hague, that will run throughout the whole building. I love working on them.
The school hopes to move in in november.
My prints are 'sjabloondruk', template prints when I translate the term. Not many people are familiar with this technique. Here in the Netherlands I always ask if people know the work of Hendrik Werkman (1882-1945), as his work is the best known example of 'sjabloondruk'.
His series Chassidic Legends is well known and loved.
Monty Lee is an Australian illustrator with Dutch roots, that I only know through Instagram, where she posts under the name Mo Sokje.
Her illustrations often are collages, where the different figures and elements are cut out and glued to the background, a technique I also sometimes like to use.
The work is at the same time funny and beautiful, with strangely distorted figures and gorgeous colors.
It reminds me a bit of Wolf Erlbruch and also of Tilman Michalski.
The American illustrator Maurice Sendak (1928-2012) is one of my absolute heroes.
Best known maybe for 'Where the wild things are' and the 'Little Bear' series, his work from cartoons like 'In the night kitchen' to theater decors is always beautiful.
Sometimes realistic, sometimes cartoonesk, always brilliant.
This weeks Monday Hero is the Czech artist Jiri Bouda (1934_2015)
Bouda almost exclusively depicts trains and railroads in his graphic work. This may sound restricted, but his prints are incredibly rich, atmospheric and a bit nostalgic.
We own one of his lithographs, and I never get bored with it.