CODART, Dutch and Flemish art in museums worldwide

Online Study Morning
22 January 2022
10:30 – 13:00 (GMT)
Online event (Zoom)

The exhibition Frans Hals: The Male Portrait at The Wallace Collection brings together a selection of Hals’s best male portraits to demonstrate how the artist completely revolutionized the genre, capturing and revealing his sitters’ characters like no other artist before him. As our exhibition draws to a close, join a host of curators and academics to explore a diverse range of themes drawn from Hals’s extraordinary work, including his pendant portraits of women, his portrayal of other painters, his commissions for the Mennonite, and the re-evaluation of his work in the 19th century.

Contributors include exhibition curator Dr. Lelia Packer (Wallace Collection), Dr. Norbert E Middelkoop (Frans Hals Museum), Prof. Frans Grijzenhout (University of Amsterdam) and independent art historian Dr. Frances Jowell. Q&A sessions will be facilitated by Dr. Marrigje Rikken (Frans Hals Museum).

Saturday, 22 January 2022

10.30–10.35 Welcome and Introduction

10.35–11.00 Dashing Pairs: Hals’s Pendant Portraits of Women
Dr. Lelia Packer (Wallace Collection)
Several of the male portraits on display in Frans Hals: The Male Portrait were conceived as part of a pendant pair, together with a female sitter, most often displaying a married couple. Although he worked  within an established tradition, Hals often took liberties and broke with convention, but did he also apply this approach to his female sitters? What might these works tell us about his pendant portraits more  generally?

11.00–11.25 Frans Hals: the Male Mennonite (and his Wife)
Prof. Frans Grijzenhout (University of Amsterdam)
With his dashing technique, Frans Hals must have baffled his contemporaries in representing his sitters as lively and naturally dominant in society. Posture,  colour, and a certain degree of extravaganza – as  seen in his famous ‘Laughing Cavalier’ – are important elements to this effect. How does this reconcile with his commissions to portray members of a religious minority that put a deliberate emphasis on  restraint, modesty and aversion to the wider world?

11.25–11.45 Q&A with morning speakers
Facilitated by Dr. Marrigje Rikken (Frans Hals Museum)

11.45–11.50 Short break

11.50–12.15 Facing Friends: Frans Hals’s Portrayal of Painters
Dr. Norbert Middelkoop (Frans Hals Museum)
During the second half of his career, Frans Hals portrayed a considerable number of fellow artists. His portraits of Adriaen van Ostade, Frans Post and Vincent van der Vinne are well-known, but others have  come to us indirectly, either as references in inventories or as early reproductions. What do these portraits tell us about Hals’s artistic production?

12.15–12.40 Frans Hals ‘rediscovered’?
Dr. Frances Jowell (Independent Art Historian)
The dramatic reversal of Hals’s posthumous critical fortunes in the second half of the 19th century involved the responses of art historians, critics, dealers, collectors and artists. How did they contribute to  Hals’s revived popularity?

12.40–13.00 Q&A with afternoon speakers
Facilitated by Dr Marrigje Rikken (Frans Hals Museum)

13.00 Closing remarks

This Study Morning will be hosted on Zoom. Ticket holders will be emailed the Zoom link, Webinar ID and passcode 24 hours in advance. For more information and to register for this event, see www.wallacecollection.org/whats-on/frans-hals-study-morning/

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