Frans Hals: Master of the Fleeting Moment

It’s been quite the year for fans of Frans Hals: an exhibition that proved highly popular at the National Gallery in London last autumn went on to grace the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam earlier this year, and is now making its merry way to the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (12 July–3 November). The artist’s lasting appeal is often tied to his ‘in the moment’ approach: rather than positioning his sitters in static, conventional poses, he preferred to capture them in movement, their faces animated with subtle smiles or lit up in laughter, hands outstretched and mouths agape as if frozen mid conversation. Another intriguing element of his practice was the background of the sitters themselves: Hals often painted the outsiders of his home city, Haarlem, with the same humanity as he did its elite. In this incarnation of the exhibition, some 50 of the artist’s paintings are being displayed alongside works by his Haarlem contemporaries as well as 19th-century artists such as the realist Wilhelm Leibl and German Impressionist Max Liebermann.

Find out more from the Gemäldegalerie’s website.

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Malle Babbe (c. 1640) Frans Hals. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. Photo: Christoph Schmidt; © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie

Portrait of Catharina Hooft with her Nurse (1619–20), Frans Hals. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. Photo: Christoph Schmidt; © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie

The Lute Player (1623–24) Frans Hals. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photo: Franck Raux; © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre)