By Gary Schwartz

Once every three years since 1992, the Prince Bernhard Cultural Foundation, originally launched under another name in 1940 to aid the war effort, has awarded a prize to a person or institution in the humanities. It is a generous prize of 50,000 euros, of which two-thirds is to be spent on projects in the field of the laureate. Of all the many deserving candidates in the Netherlands, the jury has seen fit to give the 2009 prize to me. It will be awarded on 4 November in the very nice location of the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ in Amsterdam.

I have not yet seen the jury report, but I hope that the Schwartzlist is mentioned in it. In saying which, I would like to thank all 1166 of you who by subscribing to the list have inspired me to continue writing the columns. With special thanks to those of the fifty original subscribers who have been with me since 1995. That I have not written a column since April may have something to do with the confidentiality attached to the award. There was something peculiarly satisfying about knowing in secret that this announcement was coming.

In the meanwhile, I have embarked on another peculiarly satisfying endeavor. Since the beginning of September, I have been a fellow-in-residence of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Wassenaar. More about that will follow in the months to come.

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Gary Schwartz was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1940. In 1965 he came to the Netherlands with a graduate fellowship in art history and stayed. He has been active as a translator, editor and publisher; teacher, lecturer and writer; and as the founder of CODART, an international network organization for curators of Dutch and Flemish art. As an art historian, he is best known for his books on Rembrandt: Rembrandt: all the etchings in true size (1977), Rembrandt, his life, his paintings: a new biography (1984) and The Rembrandt Book (2006). His Internet column, now called the Schwartzlist, appeared every other week from September 1996 to April 2007 and has been appearing since then irregularly. His most recent book on Rembrandt is one of the six titles nominated for the Banister Fletcher Award for the most deserving book on art or architecture of the past year. Contact him at Gary.Schwartz@xs4all.nl

(c) Gary Schwartz 2009. Published on the Schwartzlist on 10 September 2009.