Van Hemessen & Father: Catharina and Jan Sanders van Hemessen as artistic pioneers in 16th-century Antwerp

Van Hemessen & Father brings a forgotten family of artistic pioneers back into the spotlight, thereby 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 book serves as the catalogue for the exhibition of the same name at the Snijders&Rockoxhuis in Antwerp, which, in a modified form, will have a second venue at the National Gallery in London.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