Franz Hals

Frans Hals (1580–1666) is, like Rembrandt and Vermeer, one of the greats of the Dutch Golden Age. Hals primarily made his name with his lively, virtuoso portraiture made in the bustling, prosperous city of Haarlem: group portraits of high-ranking gentlemen and more informal scenes of drunkards, laughing children and musicians. He was admired by artists such as van Gogh, Édouard Manet, Max Liebermann and James Abbott McNeill Whistler as the first modern painter. This book acquaints the reader with the Dutch master in an accessible manner: what did he look like, who were his predecessors and contemporaries, and what makes him so unique? The first overview of the life and work of Hals written for a broad audience, Frans Hals is affordably priced and richly illustrated with many details and reproductions of 69 of Hals' most famous works selected from international collections.

2013 is officially Frans Hals Year, marking exactly 100 years since the Frans Hals Museum opened its doors to display the work of this key Dutch artist of the seventeenth century. The most important exhibition in this jubilee year is Frans Hals: Eye to Eye with Rembrandt, Rubens and Titian, in which key works by Hals are presented alongside paintings by such famed colleagues as Titian, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Jordaens and Rubens. In this eponymous publication, all the works in the exhibition are presented side by side, enabling the reader to compare the masterpieces and see just how the artists inspired one another. These unique comparisons and juxtapositions of master painters lead to a far deeper and more nuanced understanding of seventeenth-century painting and its tight web of artistic connections. Famous painters, after all, often produced their works in response to one another, with the aim of proving their creative and technical mettle--while also aiming to surpass (and perhaps even intimidate) their fellow artists. This painterly swordsmanship spurred individual artists--and art as a whole--to ever greater heights. A selection of distinguished international specialists casts new light on Hals’ virtuosity, his central role in seventeenth-century culture and his artistic relationship with his contemporaries in Antwerp (Rubens, Van Dyck) and Amsterdam (Rembrandt).