Hals Museum: In 1661 the aged Hals was exempted by the Guild of St. Luke from the payment of annual dues, and in the following year the burgomasters of the city granted him a yearly pension. In 1664 he received the important commission to paint group portraits of the governors and lady governors of the Old Men's Alms House (both in the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem), further indication that his position in the community had not been ruined by a dissolute life. Hals died in Haarlem on Aug. 29, 1666.
ANDRES GOTH, M. D. University of Texas Southwestern Medical School
HALS, hals, Frans (died 1666), Dutch painter, celebrated for his brilliant brushwork and virtuoso technique. Hals is generally considered second only to Rembrandt among Dutch painters of Holland's "Golden Age."
The museum is internationally noted especially for its baroque masterpieces, and for containing the most significant collection in the United States of the work of Peter Paul Rubens. Among other masters represented are : Paolo Veronese, Tintoretto, Guercino, Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Velazquez, El Greco, Murillo, Goya, Thomas Gainsborough, and Joshua Reynolds. A tiny jewellike 18th century theater, once a feature of the Castle of Asolo, was brought from Italy in 1950, forms an exhibit, and is used constantly for the museum's cultural and educational program. |
