Last week I forgot to quote Gwen John’s brother Auguste – a painter like his sister – who said: “In fifty years I will be known as the brother of Gwen John”. In a better world, that would have been true but unfortunately Auguste failed to recognise the power of misogyny.
In that same better world, Vincent van Gogh might have been called ‘the male Suze Robertson’. Her style however, was deemed unflattering and not feminine enough by critics. Despite all that bullshit, she established a solid reputation both nationally and internationally in the last 15 years of her career. Even after her death, she was considered by Mondriaan, Toorop and Plasschaert as one of the greatest artists of the 19th century.
There are many reasons why – decades later – barely anyone remembers Robertson. Being a woman is one of them. On the other hand; there was no one to market her work and her story after she died. Art lives on partially through storytelling. Van Gogh’s work was presented to the public together with his letters, his story, that gave the viewer a connection with the person behind those paintings. Without his sister-in-law, there’s a fair chance that Vincent would have suffered the same fate as Suze.
Being a woman turned out to have one advantage: rediscovery. In 2020 the Mesdag Museum in The Hague presented a massive exhibition of almost all her important works. We walked around there in awe. We wondered ‘how have we missed these works for so damn long?!’. We got angry, we were mesmerised and then we went home without ever forgetting that these works are essential to our understanding of art. And that was the goal.
You can join the live stream on Wednesday, April 23 2025 at 8PM CET (Amsterdam time). There will be a replay available afterwards.
“Pietje” by Suze Robertson (1898)
I’ve linked the Museum Mesdag page in English, but you can change back to Dutch in the top menu on the page.
