It is with sadness that we announce the death of
Michael Hoyle (1943–2024)
From 1983 onwards Michael was our witty and hard-to-overrule English editor of Simiolus. Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art. After an unsuccessful attempt to become a second Bob Dylan in Amsterdam and without any specific training he began translating Dutch art-historical literature in the 1970s, his first contribution to Simiolus being a review in 1977 by Ilja Veldman of a book on Maarten van Heemskerck, followed by a game-changing article by Hessel Miedema. He soon began translating articles by editors other than Veldman as well, among them Peter Hecht, and it quickly became clear that the journal could benefit from his sensitive, concise and at times humorous choice of words and turn of phrase, making readable what was overly academic or simply boring. He was therefore asked to join as the journal’s English-language editor.
Until the age of 81 Michael has conscientiously devoted himself to this task, and as such he has been, with Peter Hecht, one of the driving forces behind Simiolus during the past forty years. Among scholars of seventeenth-century Dutch painting he will especially be remembered for his excellent translation of Philips Angel’s Praise of Painting in our 1996 volume.
But his reputation rests not only on what he has done for our journal. Soon he became a much sought-after translator for many museum publications, especially in the field of seventeenth-century Dutch art. With his usual rigor and humor he also successfully coordinated all the translations of Van Gogh’s letters for the scholarly edition of his correspondence, published by the Van Gogh Museum in 2009, and he was rightly proud of this joint effort to do justice to Van Gogh’s original.
More generally speaking, as editor and translator he was instrumental in bringing international prestige to the work of Dutch art historians and museums. For this, he deserves our unqualified praise. We have lost a sharp, witty editor, and he will be missed by his family, partner and Simiolus. He will be commemorated in our next issue.
The editors, past and present
Articles in the current issue (45-1/2)
Remembering Ger Luijten (1956–2022)
Peter Hecht
“It’s all in the game”: games and gambling in early Northern art
Ilja M. Veldman
Leisure in Rome, 1629: an unknown edition of a print series after Abraham Bloemaert
Gregor J.M. Weber
Still life of a home in Paris: Jan Frans van Dael’s residence at the Feuillantines
Ruben Suykerbuyk
Corot: open-air painting after Italy
Peter Galassi
Family matters: the letters of the Van Gogh family
Hans Luijten
An essay on Mondrian’s “tragic”
Jeroen Stumpel
An art historical miracle: Hollstein’s and New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish etchings, engravings and woodcuts ca. 1450–1700
Huigen Leeflang and Marjolein Leesberg
Thinking in longer lines. Ger Luijten and contemporary Dutch prints and drawings
Gijsbert van der Wal
