Four hundred years since they were painted, Frans Hals’s portraits still breathe with life. There’s the hint of a smile, a hand resting nonchalantly on a hip, and just occasionally, a burst of laughter.
Meet the striking characters Hals brought to life in this exhibition of some 50 of his best works. It’s the first major Hals retrospective in more than thirty years.
Hals enthralled 17th-century Dutch audiences. His style was pioneering for the time, showing relaxed, lively sitters, often smiling, and even laughing. This gifted artist’s deft brushwork was unparalleled. He changed the face of portraiture forever.
See these intimate portraits, lively groups scenes and marriage portraits reunited after centuries apart. Amongst them is the first-ever loan of his most famous picture, ‘The Laughing Cavalier’ (1624), from the Wallace Collection, and paintings that have never left the Netherlands.
Exhibition organised by the National Gallery, the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and the Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin with the special collaboration of the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem.
