09/09/2026
🎨 A beautiful story about painter Suzanne Perlman and the Dutch Centre, told by her grandson, Matthew:
“My grandma was from Budapest. She grew up there before the Second World War, in a Hungarian-Jewish family. As a child, she helped at her parents’ art and antiques gallery, and that’s where her love of art began.
At seventeen, she met my grandfather and left with him for Rotterdam. Three days before the German invasion of the Netherlands, they escaped to Paris. On the very day France surrendered to the N***s, they boarded one of the last boats to Curaçao. Where she did what she loved most: she painted. She captured island life and the local people - something unusual at the time. The cultural elite didn’t think it was proper, but she couldn’t care less.
After her husband died, she moved to London to be closer to her family. I was eighteen when I visited her to help move some paintings. I went through hundreds of paintings and thousands of drawings. For the first time, I realised how extraordinary her work was, and I knew I had to do something with it.
I reached out to countless galleries, but was politely turned down every time. Eventually, the Dutch Centre in London gave us a chance. From there, more and more doors began to open.
In 2020, she passed away at the age of 97. We worked together right up until the very end.”
We’re very proud to be part of this story, and a special thank you to Humans of Amsterdam for sharing it with a wider audience.
