Giselle Kuster artwork • painting • previously for sale Indonesian woman with flowers and parasol

Giselle Kuster is born in 1911 in Venlo. Her parents encourage her to take drawing and painting lessons, and at the end of 1934, she moves to Liège to study at the academy there. After just over a year, Kuster returns to her parents in Venlo and becomes a member of the art organization 'De Blauwe Bloem'. In her studio, she organizes salons and surrounds herself with intellectuals, writers, and other artists. She earns her living through illustrations for newspapers and magazines, and advertising work for companies. Additionally, she paints free works.Kuster is interested in international artists like Picasso and Braque but follows more the path of expressionism. When she moves to Leiden in 1940 with her parents, she starts the art gallery Pro Arte. Here, she exhibits her own work as well as work from other moderns like Jan Sluijters, Charley Toorop, and Otto van Rees. With her Dutch-Indonesian husband, she moves to Indonesia in 1948, where he was stationed as a doctor. Kuster creates many colourful paintings and drawings mainly of Indonesian women and portraits commissioned by Dutch people. At the end of 1949, she returns to the Netherlands, where she continues to incorporate her Indonesian impressions into her art in the following years. When her marriage breaks down six years later, Kuster moves to Formentera, where she also captures the local women and children with her brush. Eventually, she returns to Maastricht and will continue to paint until her death at the age of 61.