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Suzanne Perlman

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Suzanne Perlman
Born(1923-10-18)October 18, 1923
Budapest, Hungary
NationalityHungarian
Dutch
Known forPainting
MovementExpressionism
AwardsOrder of Orange-Nassau
Websitewww.suzanneperlman.co.uk

Suzanne Perlman (October 18, 1923) is a Hungarian-Dutch visual artist known for her expressionist portraits and landscape paintings. Her bold use of colour has its origins in her early paintings of the tropical island of Curaçao, where she moved with her husband in 1940 to escape Nazi persecution. Her expressionist style developed under the tutelage of Austrian master Oskar Kokoschka with whom she worked in Salzburg in the 1960's. Reviewing a 1993 Exhibition as his Critic’s Choice in The Times, John Russell Taylor, art critic and author, wrote that ‘[Perlman] captures the particular feel of the place while abating none of her expressionist dash’.[1]

Perlman studied at Columbia University School of the Arts, Instituto Allende and at Saint Martin's School of Art.[2]

Suzanne is the sister of the late Sir Sigmund Sternberg

Life and work

Early life

Suzanne was born in Budapest on October 18, 1923 into a Jewish family.[3] She lived with her brother, Sigmund, and her two parents, Abraham and Elisabeth Sternberg. The family owned an art and antiques gallery and Abraham had an avid interest in the works of young Hungarian artists, discovering and promoting a number of them, notably Pál Fried.[4] While still at school, Suzanne would help her parents to sort and catalogue a collection of museum postcards by famous artists – an experience that Perlman saw as her early training and inspiration.[3]

In 1939, at the age of 17, she married Henri Perlman, a businessman, and moved with him to Rotterdam, Holland.[5] Soon after arriving, tensions in Europe were rising. After coming in with the lowest tender to supply grain to French troops behind the Maginot Line, Henri was summoned by telegram to Paris to urgently negotiate the deal and was told to bring his wife. Suzanne describes this call as the one that saved her and her husband’s life. They arrived in Paris on the 11th May 1940, three days before the German bombing of Rotterdam – “One of the first hits of the Nazi bombardment of Rotterdam was my husband’s office building”.</ref>[6] Amidst the chaos, the couple managed to get to Bordeaux and board what was to be the last vessel to leave Europe on the day the Armistice of 22 June 1940. In August 1940, they arrived in Curaçao.[3]

Early Works and Curaçao

Unable to communicate in Papiamento, the local patois, Suzanne expressed her admiration for the island and it’s people through art. Suzanne gravitated toward portraying ordinary working people of the island such as street vendors, domino players in the street or ritual dancers.[7]

Perlman had her first major solo exhibition at the Curaçao Museum in 1961.[8]

Whilst living in Curaçao in the 1950's, Suzanne was selected to attend a workshop run by Oskar Kokoschka in Salzburg. After the workshop, she was selected to work alongside him in his studio which had a seminal impact on her work and expressionist style. </ref>[9] Suzanne is quoted saying of Kokoschka: 'He had an amazing dynamic and said to me "Technique you can learn, but the moment of vision cannot be taught"'</ref>[10]

New York

From the late 1960s, and until Henri's death in 1982, the Perlman's spent time living in New York where Suzanne studied at the Art Students League of New York.

Suzanne immersed herself in the abstract expressionist movement. She was a pupil of Sidney Gross, a painter, from whom she drew inspiration and produced a number of abstract works still brimming with the Caribbean palette of the Dutch Antilles.[11]

London

Suzanne moved to London in the 1980’s to be closer to her family after the death of her husband. Moving to London was a renaissance in her life and her art: “I began to paint immediately. As an outsider, there was an amazing quality in what I saw – I had to communicate this sense of wonder.”</ref>[12]

In 2014, David Glasser curated the exhibition Suzanne Perlman, Painting London, at the Ben Uri Gallery in London, (April 30–May 17, 2014). Glasser describes her London work as "part Arcadia, part metropolis, part fantasy and part documentary. Her subjects include summer revels and autumn blooms in London’s parks; traffic-laden busy thoroughfares; Covent Garden nightlife; booksellers on a glowing Southbank, and architectural vistas of the Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square and St. Paul’s."[13]

In 2018, Perlman had her first retrospective exhibition in London held at the Dutch Centre.[14] It was awarded the Critic's Choice by Jackie Wullschlager of the Financial Times.[15]

Collections

Work by the artist is represented in major museum collections, including:[16]

  1. ^ Editor:Henny E. Coomans (2006). Motifs of Curaçao. Curaçao: Stichting Libro Antilliani. p. 49. ISBN 90-75238-18-5. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  2. ^ "Suzanne Perlman", Ben Uri, Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  3. ^ a b c "Biography", Suzanneperlman.co.uk, Retrieved 4 January 2019.
  4. ^ Editor:David Glasser (2014). Suzanne Perlman, Painting London. London: Ben Uri Gallery and Museum Limited. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-900157-48-6. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  5. ^ "Suzanne Perlman, Ruth Borchard Collection", Retrieved January 4, 2019.
  6. ^ Editor:David Glasser (2014). Suzanne Perlman, Painting London. London: Ben Uri Gallery and Museum Limited. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-900157-48-6. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  7. ^ "Suzanne Perlman, Ruth Borchard Collection"
  8. ^ "Exhibitions"
  9. ^ Editor: Andrea Tardini, Francesco Poli (2017). Suzanne Perlman, Tzedakah per Venezia. Venice: Andrea Tardini Gallery. p. 10. ISBN 978-88-941777-2-5. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  10. ^ Editor:David Glasser (2014). Suzanne Perlman, Painting London. London: Ben Uri Gallery and Museum Limited. p. 60. ISBN 978-0-900157-48-6. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  11. ^ "Suzanne Perlman", Ben Uri, Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  12. ^ Editor:David Glasser (2014). Suzanne Perlman, Painting London. London: Ben Uri Gallery and Museum Limited. p. 62. ISBN 978-0-900157-48-6. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  13. ^ "Suzanne Perlman", Ben Uri, Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  14. ^ "Suzanne Perlman", Dutch Centre, Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  15. ^ "Suzanne Perlman", Critic's Choice, Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  16. ^ "Exhibitions"
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