Nola Hatterman. 'Louis Richard Drenthe/ On the Terrace'

Beer

Depicted in this portrait by actress and painter Nola Hatterman is a man assumed to be Jimmy van der Lak, also known as Jimmy Lucky, a boxer, stage artist, and waiter, who was one of the first Surinamese immigrants in the Netherlands. Smartly dressed and lounging on a terrace with a glass of cold beer and an open newspaper, he is the epitome of a gentlemanly Amsterdammer. The painting was produced by commission of Amstel Beer, but the company rejected it, assumably due to the model’s skin color. Hatterman increasingly dedicated her work to the depiction of people from Suriname and moved to this former Dutch colony in 1953, where she started an art shool.