Van Hemessen & Father

Van Hemessen & Father brings a forgotten family of artistic pioneers back into the spotlight, rewriting the story of the Antwerp Renaissance from a surprising perspective: that of a painter's studio where father and children worked together, experimented and left their mark on art history.

The focus is on daughter Catharina van Hemessen, the earliest Southern Netherlandish Renaissance painter of whom signed works have survived. She painted as a woman in a man's world, signed her work with self-assurance and garnered international admiration from art connoisseurs even in her own time. Her work bears witness to artistic finesse and intellectual independence. Her father, Jan Sanders van Hemessen, is regarded as a key figure in the artistic transition from Quinten Massijs to Pieter Bruegel the Elder, with an artistic output that hovered somewhere between medieval mysticism and humanist realism. In the bustling Antwerp of the 16th century, he developed into an influential master with a thriving studio.