Raja Petra

YM Raja Petra bin Raja Kamarudin (1950) is a Malaysian blogger known for running the Malaysia Today website and publishing a series of controversial commentaries and articles on Malaysian politics on the website.

He is sometimes referred to by the initials RPK.

He was detained for a second time under the Internal Security Acton 12 September 2008. On 7 November 2008, Raja, 58, was freed from detention after Shah Alam city High Court Justice Syed Ahmad Helmy Syed Ahmad granted his habeas corpus petition and ruled that his detention was illegal.

In May 2010 Cheras Umno Division chairman Datuk Syed Ali Alhabshee called on the government to strip Raja Petra of his citizenship on the grounds that his activities could affect the peace of the country.

He is currently residing in Manchester, England.

Petrus Iilonga

Petrus Iilonga (1947 –2018) was a Namibian politician as well as a trade union leader and political prisoner in Robben Island.

A member of the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), Iilonga served as Deputy Minister in various Ministries and was a member of the party's Central Committee.

Iilonga left to receive military training in Tanzania and the Soviet Union in 1974. He returned to Namibia in 1976 to fight for the People's Liberation Army of Namibia in the Namibian War of Independence. Captured by South African forces, he was imprisoned on Robben Island from 1978 to 1985.

After his release, Iilonga began mobilizing workers under the National Union of Namibian Workers.

In 1995, Iilonga became a member of the National Assembly, a position he held until his death in 2018.

Mr Fayed Hassan and Mohammad Ali

In 1977, in a typically flamboyant gesture, the boxer Mohammad Ali visited the unsung town of South Shields, near Newcastle, in the northeast of England.

Mr Fayed Hassan

Ali had been invited by one Johnny Walker, a local painter and decorator who knew the legend from his active boxing days, to help raise money for his club in the town. Astonishingly the three-time world champion agreed — touring the borough in an open bus to a rapturous reception from thousands of admirers. He played darts, sparred with a professional fighter and larked about in the ring with the local lads.

The world might have forgotten that extraordinary day, but it is still talked about in the town.

Iranian director Tina Gharavi made a documentary on the event, interviewing the few remaining members of the Yemeni Islamic community.

The result is an exhibition at the Mosaic Rooms, in West London, which combines a documentary on Ali’s visit entitled “The King of South Shields” with videoed testimonies from 14 of the men, the last surviving children of the first generation who settled in South Shields.

Les gardiennes (The Guardians)

The Guardians (Les gardiennes, "The female guardians") is a 2017 French drama film directed and written by Xavier Beauvois.

The film is set on a farm in the Limousin region of central France during, and just after, the First World War. With her two sons and son-in-law serving in the army, Hortense Sandrail employs Francine Riant, a young woman brought up in an orphanage. While initially all goes well, tensions develop and Francine is eventually dismissed.

While the rhythm of seasons continues, the film shows the impact of both war and wider social changes on the women left to run the farm.

Thanks Frans

Philip Krefeld

Australian Philip Krefeld's work is figurative and much has been based on his travels through Spain. 

More recently the human condition has been important in his work, and this is reflected in the “Off the Track” paintings, “The Lovers” etchings, drawings and paintings, and most recently in an autobiographical series “You shall tell your Child”.

Jakucho (Harumi) Setouchi

Jakucho Setouchi (1922), formerly Harumi Setouchi is a Buddhist nun, writer, and activist.

Setouchi is noted for her biographical novels written as first-person narratives. Setouchi's first literary award reception for Kashin was criticized as pornography. She has also received one of Japan's more prestigious literary awards, the Tanizaki Prize for her novel Hana ni Toe in 1992.

In 1973 she took vows and became a Buddhist nun in the Tendai school of Buddhism. In 2007 she was installed as a nun at Chūson-ji, a temple in Hiraizumi, Iwate Prefecture, and received her name Jakuchō. Her name means "silent, lonely listening." At this time Setouchi also became a social activist, built a center for women, and became a spiritual advisor. She is noted for her opposition to the death penalty in Japan.

Body Art

 Body Artist with yellow beret

Sijbren Schuil, Honorary Corporal

The Vliehors is an extensive nature reserve on the Dutch Wadden island of Vlieland.

Vliehors is a widened beach of approximately 24 square kilometers, which is now largely used as a military training ground for the Royal Netherlands Air Force, the only one in the Netherlands where air force pilots and NATO partners are allowed to practice with ammunition and explosive charges.

From 1955 to April 2004, a cavalry shooting camp (CSK) was also located on the Vliehors. This was the only location in the Netherlands where live ammunition could be fired through the Leopard tanks of the Dutch cavalry, the tank unit of the Royal Netherlands Army.

Siep (Sijbren) Schuil (1907), a.k.a. the  "Vlielandse Hermit", first came to the island as a conscript soldier, went into hiding in the dunes during the German occupation and afterwards remained on the island as a carpenter. He was often employed by the military for a variety of odd jobs.

Over time he acquired the rank of "Honorary Corporal of the Cavalry".

Sieb was a very friendly eccentric with an extensive knowledge of the birds and the beasts of the field (and a dedicated beret wearer!).

Sieb was once in prison for rabbit poaching.

Evidence of release from prison; 14 days for rabbit poaching in 1952. 

Klaas Koopmans

Klaas Koopmans (1920-2006) was born in Garyp, Fryslân (the Dutch Province of Friesland) and became known for his expressionist paintings of the Frisian landscape.

But perhaps even more so because of the penetrating drawings he made during his admissions to psychiatric institutions.

Klaas Koopmans belongs to the canon of Frisian art. With four befriended painters (Jan Frearks van der Bij, Pier Feddema, Sjoerd Huizinga and Jaap Rusticus) he formed the group 'Yn' e line 'and thus represented expressionism in Friesland.

Koopmans was admitted to psychiatric institutions several times. He then drew his fellow patients and the staff. Hundreds of soulful and poignant drawings of people in tribulation are the result. 

It was not until the late 1970s that this work was allowed to be shown to the public for the first time, because of the taboo atmosphere that surrounded it for a long time. Now the drawings are part of museum collections.

Edward van Ryswyck

Edward van Ryswyck (1871 - 1931) was a Belgian painter of the Romantic School, known for his many still lifes with flowers, fruits and fish. His name is also written as Edward Van Rijswijck.

In the beginning of his career he focused on botanical subjects and studies of animals from the Antwerp Zoo. At the age of nineteen, he received a scholarship and congratulations from King Leopold II.

During the First World War he emigrated to the Netherlands. Here he applied himself successfully to portrait painting.

Wilhelm List

Wilhelm Franz List was an Austrian painter, engraver, and lithographer from the Jugendstil period. He studied at the Beaux-Arts in Vienna where he was a pupil of Christian Griepenkerl, then in Munich and Paris where he studied with William Bouguereau.

Wilhelm List, Self-portrait with his brother

In 1897 List was one of the founders of the Viennese Secession and exhibited there. But List is best known for his engravings, where he used wood and lithography in turn.

His paintings are similar to those in the art of Gustav Klimt. Thematically, he worked on portraits, landscapes and genre scenes, often with magical or mythological subjects. Important are especially its graphics, woodcuts and lithographs.

Meet Mr Christopher Flansburg, Again

Some three years ago, I published a post on my customer and friend Christopher from Maine. 

Once a year, Christopher organizes his famous noche española; good food, good wine, good company

and yes, good Spanish berets!

Bummer I couldn't make it... 

Thanks Chris

Carel Citroen

From the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam: two 1942 portraits of Carel Citroen (1905-1997) one below the other.

The top portrait is of a bearded pipe-smoking man with cap, breastpiece and profile to the left (Mr Hilkens?). The bottom portrait shows a man, full-length, seen from behind (Erich Mandel).

Jo Spier Illustration

This is a book illustration by Jo Spier in Max Tak's book "Under the trees of the square". It is printed on page 39 of the book. It depicts a beret wearing male in a train compartment with a few playing cards on the pulled-out table. Depicting male person: Beniamino Gigli.

Stedelijk Museum in Zutphen (Netherlands).

Theo van Doesburg

Portrait of a man wearing a beret, by Theo van Doesburg

Theo van Doesburg was a Dutch artist, who practiced painting, writing, poetry and architecture. He is best known as the founder and leader of De Stijl. He was married to artist, pianist and choreographer Nelly van Doesburg. 

Dutch "Green Berets"

Hennie Keeris is a professional photographer who created a series of portraits of Dutch veteran 'Commandos' in 2007. 

These veterans were trained in Achnacarry, Scotland during WW2. 

Twenty-five of them completed the training and received the green beret. 

They collectively formed “No. 2 (Dutch) Troop ”, which became the base for the current Commando regiment in the Dutch army.

Gerhard Westermann

Gerhardus "Gerhard" Bernardus Josephus Westermann (1880–1971) was a Dutch artist.

In 1932 he won a bronze medal in the art competitions of the Olympic Games for his "Horseman". Westermann's work was included in the 1939 exhibition and sale Onze Kunst van Heden (Our Art of Today) at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Piet van Stuivenberg

Pieter Antonie (Piet or Pieter) van Stuivenberg (1901 - 1988) was a Dutch artist, who was active as sculptor, painter, lithographer, and graphic artist.

Born in Schiedam, Van Stuivenberg received his art education at the Academy of Fine Arts and Applied Sciences now Willem de Kooning Academy) in Rotterdam.

Van Stuivenberg started his sculptor career as stonemason and was first influenced by the expressionism and later abstract working with geometric shapes and tighter. In Rotterdam he joined the art society R33, which was founded in 1933 and dismantled in 1941. He made study trips to Brussels, London, and Paris. In the Netherlands he subsequently joined the artist group Vrije Beelden (Free Sculptures), founded by the Rotterdam artists Koos van Vlijmen and Wout van Heusden and others in 1946. In 1950 his work was represented at the fifth Salon des Réalités Nouvelles in Paris.

Hans Reicher

Johannes (Hans) Reicher (1895 - 1963) was a German-Dutch sculptor.

Reicher was educated at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Berlin. He settled in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 20th century, where he lived and worked in The Hague and from 1937 in Amsterdam, where he became a teacher at the Hendrick de Keyzer school. 

He lived for some time with sculptor Hubert van Lith. After the Second World War, he created a number of war memorials, among other sculptures. He made figurative work.

Willem Dooijewaard

Willem Dooijewaard was born in 1892 in Amsterdam, he was schooled at the Rijksschool voor Kunstnijverheid in Amsterdam by Roland Strasser and Georg Sturm. Dooijewaard was an adventurous men, when he was twenty years old he left as one the first Dutch painters to Dutch East Indies. He travelled a lot more throughout Asia and even climbed the Himalaya.

Willem Dooijewaard self-portrait 1942

During his travels he tried to capture locals doing their everyday job in an impressionistic way. Dooijewaard never used models, he was very good in making contact with locals without interfering with what they where doing. After his journey in Asia came to an end he travelled to the South of France. Here he was invited to paint the ballet dancers of the theatre in Nice.

In 1933 he moved back to the Netherlands and lived in Blaricum together with his wife Jacoba until he died in 1980.