Karel Appel

When Karel Appel was still making wooden sculptures, like this ‘Windmill’, nobody would give a cent for the work of the young artist. It was shortly after World War II. Karel Appel (1921-2006) had completed his education at the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam under the German

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King Forkbeard

I find it fascinating how in TV series history is dramatized to make a story exciting, full of ‘cliffhangers’. The streaming services go quite wild with their series about Vikings. In their primitive villages, Viking women emerge with complicated hairstyles as if they had spent

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The First Monk

Once there was a first of everything. Or: the first. Saint Anthony Abbot was the very first monk in the world. Known to us as Saint Anthony the Abbot, he lived from 251 to 356 AD. He withdrew as a hermit to the eastern desert

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Teun Hocks

A man sits on the stump of a tree trunk and plays a singing saw. As if mourning the sawn-down forest. The small painting is a typical Teun Hocks (1947 – 2022). On almost all his works he has depicted himself, as a man lost

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Femmy Otten conquers musea

The artist Femmy Otten (1981) conquers musea with her wood-carved artworks. With her impressive solo exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, she lifted wood sculpting out of the realm of craftsmanship by exploring major themes such as sexuality, womanhood, motherhood and vulnerability. The largest and

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