We are inclined to pass snap judgments on other people. We quickly form an opinion on the basis of their appearance or behaviour. The beautiful but discomfiting paintings of Dutch artist Ad Gerritsen

During the second half of the 19th century, foreign artists flocked to the Netherlands. Favourite subjects were the Dutch fishing villages and their picturesque inhabitants, but the cities, provincial

Paul Wallach (New York, 1960) makes small-scale abstract sculptures out of fragile materials like plaster, driftwood and rusted metal. These are usually installed within an interior space in such a

From his early days in the sixties, Jan Jansen (1941) has evolved into a shoe designer of world stature. International publications on contemporary shoe design contain many illustrations of his work

It all went wrong on Friday the 13th in March 2020: artist Nalini Malani (b. 1946, Karachi, formerly undivided India) had to travel from Barcelona to Amsterdam. The scale and severity of the COVID-19

Elegant brushstrokes with an instant appeal to the imagination: Chinese characters have something truly magical about them. Not only because of their intrinsic beauty –to Western eyes at least – but

American artist Alice Neel (1900-1984) was above all a portrait painter or, as she herself put it, a ‘collector of souls’. She painted the people around her, from her children and lovers to MoMA

Originally a member of the Arte Povera movement, Italian artist Alighiero Boetti (1940–1994) soon went his own way. From the 1970s he became famous for his whimsical, colourful embroideries which he