The exhibition “Who is she?” Is centered on the monumental work “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner Too?” by artist and cultural activist Patricia Kaersenhout.

With this installation, consisting of large, exquisitely set dining tables full of glassware and embroidered runners, Kaersenhout gives women of colour who have not yet conquered a position in the history books a place at the table: a contemporary portrait of heroines of resistance. In this exhibition, the installation is surrounded by special portraits of and about women from the period 1820 to the present day by artists such as Charley Toorop, Hellen van Meene, Julika Rudelius, Charles Howard Hodges and Jan Sluijters.

In this exhibition we take a look at the portraits from a new perspective with a clear focus on the role of women. There is much known about the famous male artists, women generally have a supporting role in art history. What do the portraits in the exhibition tell you? Who is she? Does the way she is portrayed say something about how she was perceived by others? Does that change with time? To what extent is your own view coloured by assumptions and stereotypes?

With “Who is she?”, the Frans Hals Museum actively invites you to look differently at the way in which women were and are presented in museum collections, and to therefore see more.