Thunderclap

2025
Written By Katherine Brown

June 2025

Thunderclap by Laura Cumming

On the morning of 12 October 1654, a gunpowder explosion devastated the Dutch city of Delft. Among the fatalities was the painter Carel Fabritius, dead at thirty-two, leaving behind his haunting masterpiece The Goldfinch.

Thunderclap explores what happened to Fabritius before and after the disaster whilst interweaving the lives of Laura Cumming, her painter father and the great artists of the Dutch Golden Age. It takes the reader from seventeenth-century Delft to twentieth-century Scottish islands, from Rembrandt’s studio to wartime America and contemporary London. This is a book about what a picture may come to mean, how it can enter your life and change your thinking in a thunderclap.

 

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Katherine Brown

I’m a Canadian living in the United Kingdom - London to be exact. I’m a business person with an eye for modern design. I’m a customer marketer who thinks like a customer. I’m a design thinker who also happens to be a designer.

I’ve worked at senior marketing levels in large corporations like American Express and Sky TV. I’ve worked agency side, leading digital client accounts. I’ve been part of several start-ups, sat on Angel Investing teams and run my own design and print studio.

In 2021, I started Ascender Creative to help small businesses with big plans build their online credibility and create better customer connections. I do this by taping into my 20+ years of business experience mixing it with a strong customer focus and a big dose of creativity.

https://www.ascendercreative.com
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