30 june 2026, Flor Linckens
Two perspectives on humanity: Cathalijn Wouters and Terry O'Neill in SmithDavidson Gallery
Until 29 August, SmithDavidson Gallery in Amsterdam presents the exhibition ‘The Human Gaze’, bringing together oil paintings and ink drawings by Cathalijn Wouters with the iconic photography of Terry O'Neill. Their ways of seeing could hardly be more different, yet together they create an exciting presentation. Their works demonstrate, each in its own way, that a portrait can evoke far more than a mere likeness. Both artists seek the genuine emotion that lies beneath the façade of a carefully constructed persona. Wouters paints quiet figures, fragments and interiors drawn from her immediate surroundings, while O'Neill spent decades photographing the biggest names in music, film, sport and fashion.
As you walk through the exhibition, you find yourself moving back and forth between two contrasting visual worlds. Your gaze shifts from O'Neill's celebrated portraits of icons such as Diana Ross, Tina Turner, Robert Redford, Kate Moss, Roger Moore and Johan Cruijff to Cathalijn Wouters' much quieter paradigm, characterised by soft lines, muted colours and a distinctly female gaze. Both artists strive to capture a sense of human presence, albeit in different forms and through different media. Vulnerable or powerful, explicit or understated, charismatic or poetic. Where one artist seems to slow time itself, the other manages to freeze a decisive moment.
British photographer Terry O'Neill (1938-2019) is widely regarded as one of the most influential portrait photographers of the twentieth century. Over the course of six decades, he captured The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Frank Sinatra, David Bowie, Audrey Hepburn, Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill and dozens of other cultural and political icons. Yet O'Neill never portrayed his glamorous subjects as untouchable celebrities. Instead, he presented them as real people, intimate and approachable. His photographs capture seemingly spontaneous, unguarded moments, often outside the studio and without obvious direction, allowing their personalities to shine through for a brief moment.
His work appeared in publications including Time, Vanity Fair, Newsweek and Paris Match, featured on film posters and album covers, and is part of the collections of institutions such as the National Portrait Gallery and the V&A in London, the Smithsonian in the United States and Elton John's private art collection. In 2004, O'Neill received an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society, and in 2019 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). He passed away in London later that year at the age of 81.
Cathalijn Wouters was born in Tilburg in 1955 and studied at the St. Joost Academy in Breda. The Dutch artist creates sensitive paintings and drawings in which the human figure, memory and imagination become one. Her intuitive visual language and working process are shaped by the world around her: the films and literature she absorbs, her memories and observations, her studio and elements drawn from art history. Among her sources of inspiration are Henri Matisse, Louise Bourgeois and Philip Guston, as well as choreographer Hans van Manen. During rehearsals with Dutch National Ballet, Wouters was given the opportunity to observe and draw his dancers at close range while Van Manen directed them. In both her paintings and drawings, she favours soft colours and delicate lines, occasionally punctuated by a bolder brushstroke or a striking accent of colour. Her work centres on human connection, introspection and the layered nature of memory and emotion. Rather than physical reality itself, it is the emotional resonance of lived experience that forms the foundation of her artistic practice.
