Suzanne Perlman

This book is the first comprehensive monograph on Suzanne Perlman (1922–2020), a Hungarian-born artist whose life and work spanned continents and artistic movements. Fleeing Europe during World War II, Perlman began painting in Curaçao, where she lived for 50 years, developing a vivid expressionist style that captured the spirit of the island and its people with rare intimacy. In the early 1950s, she studied at the Art Students League in New York, engaging with Abstract Expressionism, and later worked with Oskar Kokoschka before settling in London, where her practice continued into her late ’90s. Published in collaboration with The Estate of Suzanne Perlman, the book brings together leading curators, academics, and critics to explore the full range of Perlman’s oeuvre and life. It includes essays, an archival interview, and over 150 colour images. Through these contributions, the book examines key themes in Perlman’s work: her deep-rooted engagement with place, her expressive depictions of everyday life, and her quietly radical artistic independence. It situates her not only as an émigré artist shaped by displacement and resilience, but as a timeless example of creative freedom— one whose work invites renewed attention across generations and geographies. With contributions by Jan Garden Castro, Amiel Clarke, Jan Rudolph de Lorm, Rowan Frame, Margo Groenewoud, Jennifer Higgie, Klara Kemp-Welch, Julia Nagle, Matthew Perlman, Josée Thissen-Rojer, Hans Ulrich Obrist.