Frans Hals (London, National Gallery, 20 September 2023–21 January 2024 and Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, 16 February–9 June 2024). Accompanying catalogue by BartCornelis and FrisoLammertse, with contributions by Jaap van der Veen and Justine Rinnooy Kan,

It is striking to consider that during the 1990s – a period marked by admiration for Vermeer, Rembrandt and Hals – few could have foreseen the rapid resurgence of blockbuster monographic exhibitions dedicated to these artists within just a few decades, even if hindsight now makes it seem inevitable. Indeed, retrospectives of the late-twentieth century, including the Vermeer exhibition of 1995–1996 (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and Mauritshuis, The Hague), of Rembrandt in 1991–1992 (Altes Museum, Berlin; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; National Gallery, London) and of Hals in 1989–1990 (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; National Gallery, London and Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem), all appeared to satisfy scholarly and public interest. Prior to these showings, solo exhibits devoted to Vermeer and Hals were exceedingly rare. Vermeer had only two major solo exhibitions, in four iterations – in 1935 at the Boijmans Museum and Rijksmuseum and in 1966 at the Mauritshuis and the Musée de l'Orangerie. Frans Hals has also only had two other, similarly focused solo exhibitions staged throughout the twentieth century: in 1937 and 1962, both held at the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem. In contrast to Rembrandt, who has benefited from seemingly countless other solo exhibitions held in and since the twentieth century, Vermeer and Hals are comparatively under-exhibited to contemporary audiences. Even still, Vermeer – with his quiet interiors and serenely inviting tranquility – still eclipses Hals, in terms of relevance and presence in the popular imagination, due to Hals' less immediately relatable portraits, of people from the past. While Hals' paintings may not entrance the public as capriciously as Vermeer's – whose circa 37 attributed works have enchanted audiences since his ‘rediscovery’ in the nineteenth century – Hals' portraits possess their own allure, which is rooted in the subtle though striking revelation of the artist's hand, in their brushwork. This distinctive ‘signature style’ is often referred to as ‘rough,’ ‘bravura,’ ‘painterly’ or ‘loose’ and continues to fascinate casual viewers and scholars alike; even as the study of his work has moved away from pure formal and stylistic analysis.1 Press opinion in the UK and the Netherlands was divided on the exhibition's merits: some regarded it as appealing primarily to dedicated connoisseurs, whereas others praised its success in introducing Hals to new generations.2 In the latter, it has succeeded – if only by embedding works like The Laughing Cavalier and The Lute Player into the popular imagination of the Dutch and British public. These images were extensively used in advertising for the exhibitions and prominently displayed across the urban landscapes of London and Amsterdam on posters and digital screens. A crop of The Lute Player was chosen for the cover of the catalogues, published in Dutch and English in paperback, and in a rather handsomely bound hardback, but in Dutch only.3 The image has been used on another catalogue from 2013,4 making these books less ‘fresh’, in the sense that chance for embedding other Halses into mass visual culture went unused. Rather than an object-by-object format, the publication consists of seven chapters authored by Friso Lammertse and Bart Cornelis, with Justine Rinnooy Kan and Jaap van der Veen. While this catalogue lacks the detailed individual painting entries found in the 1989 edition, it compensates this with many full-bleed spreads showcasing detail zoom-ins of Hals' brushwork. These visual interludes serve as chapter dividers, reflecting the signature style of the book's designer, Irma Boom, known for her work with the Rijksmuseum. The publication relegates the list of exhibited works to an appendix, offering a more streamlined overview for casual readers. This is not at all a catalogue to turn to for voluminous amounts of previously unknown information. These two exhibitions, in retrospect, appear to echo some critiques of the 2021–2022 Wallace Collection exhibition ‘The Male Portrait’, which featured 13 Hals' works and faced scrutiny for its focus on wealthy white male sitters.5 At the time, such shows were sometimes described as tone-deaf, considering an art world increasingly prioritizing diversity, equity and inclusion. The Frans Hals exhibitions share this potential for criticism, particularly as their thematic focus on historical elite portraiture can feel detached from contemporary efforts to broaden representation in cultural narratives. That said, the exhibitions' reception also reflects the evolving political and cultural currents of the mid-2020s. As the art world continues to navigate these shifts, the exhibitions raise valuable questions about how historical works can be presented in ways that resonate with diverse audiences – while still acknowledging the complex legacies of the figures they depict. The opening chapter, ‘Honoured and Famed’, introduces readers to Hals through an anecdote that involves James McNeill Whistler's early twentieth century visit to Haarlem's city hall, to view Hals' late group portraits (Figs. 1 and 2);6 illustrating how awareness of Hals' accomplishments had begun to penetrate even American audiences at that time. Beyond the vignette, it goes on to recount other notable episodes related to Hals' legacy, such as the socio-cultural trajectory of the Wallace Collection's The Laughing Cavalier and its entrenchment in British popular culture. The chapter's framing is mindful of the exhibition's dual European audiences – UK and Dutch – necessitating a presentation accessible to readers with varying degrees of familiarity with Hals, and his milieu, in both geographies. The chapter touches on early scholarship, noting the first Hals book of Wilhelm von Bode of 1871 – mistakenly described as a ‘monograph’.7 Of great importance for the remainder of the publication, however, is the statement by Lammertse and Cornelis that, ‘Bode's was the first in a steady stream of publications on Hals that has continued to the present day. In particular, many art historians have been busy deciding what is by the master and what is not’.8 Here, it is clear to the well-informed Hals scholar that the authors have completely sidestepped the dominant issue in Hals studies since the 1970s: attribution debates of Seymour Slive and Claus Grimm.9 They frame the emphasis of the exhibition, and its ‘catalogue’ as being focused, ‘on the paintings that are almost unanimously regarded as autograph works by Frans Hals’.10 This leaves the heavy lifting of seeking out individual histories of each painting included the exhibitions up to the readers, to explore in their own time and on their own terms. Next up is ‘The Life of Frans Hals’ by Van der Veen, recounting in broad strokes the outlines of Hals' biography in Haarlem, with mention of some of his clients. A few archival references point to correspondence between Issac Abraham Massa, merchant and diplomat and a frequent sitter of Hals, and another painter in Hals' orbit, named Pieter de Molijn; indicating the tightly interwoven social networks between Hals, other painters, and the city's merchant and diplomats in the mid-seventeenth century.11 Van der Veen remarks in a footnote that, beyond the 1989 cache of archival documents unearthed by Irene van Thiel-Stroman, 190 in total, that ‘virtually no new document on Hals has been discovered’.12 Perhaps, the most interesting information here added to Hals' biography, is the assertion that his birth year is 1584, not 1582–83, as has been republished for decades in literature. This is based on a mezzotint print of a self-portrait by Hals, mentioned by Slive in 1974, in which Hals' date of death is noted as 22 August 1666, and his birth year 1584.13 The essay introduces several of Hals' 14 children, making use of Van Thiel-Stroman's archivally informed biographies on the Hals family painters, published in 2006 in the substantial Painting in Haarlem 1500–1850: the Collection of the Frans Hals Museum.14 The author unfortunately gives ample attention to Arnold Houbraken's tangential anecdotes about Hals and alcohol, portraying him as a habitual drunkard.15 Such anecdotes add little to our understanding of Hals as an artist or historical figure. These stories are rooted more in mythmaking than in documented fact, with little substantial archival basis to support them. Moreover, emphasizing Hals' alleged drinking habits risks trivialising his artistic achievements and obscuring the groundbreaking qualities of his work, such as his innovative brushwork and ability to capture the vitality of his sitters. Repeating these tales perpetuates outdated stereotypes about ‘bohemian’ artists rather than contributing meaningful insights into Hals' career, his contributions to portraiture or the cultural and social contexts of his time. The following chapter, ‘Hals and Antwerp’ by Lammertse and Van der Veen, uses one of Van Thiel-Stroman's archival finds on Hals' having spent time in Antwerp, after the death of his first wife Anneke Harmensdochter (1590–1615), to create an outline of what was happening in that city, artistically, at the time – and how it drove the exchange of ideas between artists in the Southern Netherlands and Northern Netherlands.16 It serves to ground the casual exhibition visitor in the intertwined histories of these two political entities, linking them back to Philip II of Spain, while also discussing the Siege of Antwerp in 1584 and its impact on Haarlem, including the influx of new residents – a context that provides a foundation for those unfamiliar with Hals. The next chapter, ‘The Studio’, by the same authors, does more to blur outlines of who may have been, and who may not have been active in Hals' workshop as pupils, beyond his sons. The authors do state at the outset, ‘Sources with concrete information about Hals' “people” are scarce’.17 They then go on to state that, ‘with some degree of certainty that 14 named artists… definitely studied with Frans Hals for some length of time or worked in his studio, while in the case of others there are good reasons for assuming they also did so’.18 This is terrain that has been covered before, in the sense that the ‘pupils’ they propose, are known as being possible pupils, but not based on archival evidence. It can only be said with certainty from primary documents that an unknown Willem Wouterszn and Hals' son-in-law Pieter Gerritsz van Roestraaten were his pupils. Adriaen Brouwer (1605–1638), Dirck van Delen (1604/5–1671), Philips Wouwerman (1619–1668), Isaac van Ostade (1621–1649), Adriaen van Ostade (1610–1685) and Vincent Laurensz van der Vinne (1628–1702) are all named in secondary literature from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as being pupils in Hals' studio.19 All other proposals of possible pupils are based on pure speculation by formal analysis. His sons are also assumed to have been pupils. Cornelis' next chapter, ‘Portraiture Into Art’, offers an admirable walk through the development of Hals' portraits against the general development of Northern Netherlandish portraiture during his lifetime. The chapter discusses questions about sitters and how the process of being painted was carried out. It explores poses favoured by Hals and his ability to convey ‘non-chalance’ as well as the use of objects within his works to accompany sitters, such as skulls, flowers and sprigs of holly. The chapter is rounded off by a short discussion of Hals' ‘late works’, a category becoming increasingly frequently used, when referring to Hals' works from the 1650s and 1660s, to denote their ‘even bolder brushwork’, compared to his earlier works.20 The most interesting, and novel, subject explored in the publication is about prints created from portraits by Hals, authored by Kan. She states about 70% of Hals' works are painted on canvas, three on copper, and the remainder on panel.21 The chapter is limited to ‘the smallest portraits’ by Hals, and how they were possibly used as models for prints, zooming in further on 11 small works. This chapter goes on to place the history of collecting prints made after paintings as part of a wider European tradition, explaining how the process of translating painted portraits into prints worked technically and socially. It examines how engravers came to be producing works by artists within their milieu and how the portraits and the prints made after them were both considered works in their own right during Hals' lifetime. A helpful appendix illustrates the 11 discussed portraits with accompanying prints made after them.22 The last chapter, ‘Laughter’, by Lammertse, expands on a 2017 exhibition held at the Frans Hals Museum, ‘The Art of Laughter’ and places Hals' smiling sitters into this field of study.23 Kan's discussion of prints, and Lammertse's focus on laughter in Halses, rounds out the publication while providing foundational information for causal readers and enthusiasts. In total, 59 paintings were exhibited; 51 in Amsterdam and 50 in London.24 In London, the show was organized in the permanent galleries (rooms 1–5), due to the temporary closure of the Sainsbury Wing, for renovations. Thematic galleries somewhat mirrored the thematic divisions of the exhibition's publication: Hals' Early Work, Portraiture into Art, Invented Characters, Family Ties, Up Close and Late Work. A small cabinet adjacent to the ‘Late Works’ gallery was used to display small works by Hals. This created a situation in the exhibition in which ample amounts of wall space were left unused, in order to hang these smaller paintings in a cluster. This arrangement led to overcrowding and short viewing duration by visitors, due to the long queues that constantly formed at the tiny entrances to this cabinet. This was the only unfortunate aspect of the London iteration of the exhibition's otherwise spacious and dramatically sparse hang of Hals' paintings. The rooms' soaring ceilings, pewter, navy and burgundy painted walls, and the enfilade arrangement facilitated an experience of meandering from one gallery full of works by Hals in the museum's normally occupied main spaces, to another, which created the most regally dramatic hang of Hals' paintings seen this century (Fig. 3). The National Gallery, as a background stage set within which these works were displayed, heightened the ability to concentrate on one portrait at a time, without crowds. This made the overcrowding of the smaller cabinet at the end even more pronounced in comparison. As noted by Norbert Middelkoop, several pendants were reunited for the first time in decades.25 In Amsterdam, the categorization of galleries was slightly different than in London, and there was no chronological display of Hals' paintings. In Amsterdam, upon entering the exhibition, visitors were confronted with a space covered in close-up details of Hals' brushwork. Within that same space, opposite the entry introduction text, was a wall covered with an accordion-like contour, creating a sculptural and rhythmic sequence of folds that evoked the painter's bravura brushstrokes. The interplay of light along its pleated surface suggested the same swift, more frenetic qualities that define Hals' style, turning a structural intervention into a nuanced visual metaphor – with at its centre, a glowing white, neon ‘Frans Hals’ sign (Fig. 4). The experience of moving through the exhibition began with the museum's own The Merry Drinker, in a dedicated gallery. Next were several reunited pendants, followed by Hals' militia pieces, and two other large galleries: one dedicated to genres and tronies and another to children making music, holding skulls and set against sand dunes – the Hals works that the 1937 Hals exhibition emphasized.26 The following gallery contained Girl Singing and the Boy Playing the Violin, the Madrid family portrait, the Mauritshuis' Laughing Boy, and Catharina Hooft with her Nurse, while the next contained small portraits, such as London's Jean de le Chambre and the Rijksmuseum's Preacher.27 This was the Rijksmuseum's version of London's ‘small gallery’ of small portraits, which worked well in Amsterdam as it was a transitional gallery, rather than a ‘dead-end’ side gallery. A concluding gallery combined all of Hals' better-known portraits of men, from the 1620s onward, concluding with a gallery of the regents and regentesses from the 1660s. A digital experience was produced for both exhibitions, meant as pre-visit preparation, narrated by the actresses Joanna Lumley in English and Eva Van der Gucht, in Dutch.28 The mass media presence of Frans Hals during these exhibitions was remarkable, with extensive coverage and sustained public engagement over the 9-month period that these two exhibitions were on display. This extended timeline ensured that the exhibitions remained a recurring topic in cultural discussions, particularly in the Netherlands and London. The visibility of key works like The Laughing Cavalier and The Lute Player in traditional and digital media revitalized the public presence of Hals, reinforcing his importance within the Dutch Golden Age triumvirate, alongside Rembrandt and Vermeer. A Berlin iteration, titled ‘Frans Hals: Master of the Fleeting Moment’, held at the Gemäldegalerie, included about 50 paintings by Hals and about 25 works by Hals' fellow artists who are not definitively known to have trained with him.29 Thus, works by artists such as Johannes appeared in that no archival or primary from the time of Hals' indicating that was a of Hals. and scholarly the London and Amsterdam exhibitions, Norbert organized a Hals at the Frans Hals Museum in the of the Berlin exhibition the Hals insights from the to into their own which they were during this This for diverse into such as the of in Hals' work, innovative and on his artistic and historical The understanding of Hals' and new a of within the field of Dutch art that into Hals' and work, scholars and have to turn to from the which is to serve as a for Hals scholarly new and embedding Hals' more into contemporary cultural these exhibitions and their that Hals a evolving presence within the field of art history rather than a of the past.