Charlotte van Pallandt

In 1926 she settled in Paris, then the centre of modern art. She was taught painting by André Lhote and became acquainted with the Armenian sculptor Hakob Gyurjian, who advised her to take up sculpture. She followed lessons with Charles Malfray and Charles Despiau and she was influenced by the work of artists including Aristide Maillol. Van Pallandt stayed mainly in Paris until 1939, although from 1930 she was already a member of the Nederlandse Kring van Beeldhouwers (Dutch Circle of Sculptors).

Van Pallandt returned to the Netherlands at the outbreak of the Second World War. She met the sculptor Albert Termote, who gave her valuable technical advice. Her work deals mainly with the human body: not the anatomical structure, but the relationship between planes and volumes. She was more concerned with portraying a person’s inner character than with providing a superficial likeness.

In 1958 she represented the Netherlands at the Venice Biennale, but she would not attain widespread recognition as a figurative sculptor until 1968, when she produced the sculpture of Queen Wilhelmina in Rotterdam. On her seventy-fifth birthday she was invested as an officer in the Order of Oranje-Nassau. In 1980 she won the Singer Prize. She continued to make portraits late in life. She died in 1997 at the age of 98 at her home in Noordwijk.