The internationally renowned Dutch sculptor, painter, writer, and musician Armando (born in Amsterdam as Herman Dirk van Dodeweerd) died on 1 July 2018, aged 88, in Potsdam, Germany, where he lived and worked. His work has been heavily influenced by the Second World War and his youthful proximity to the infamous concentration camp (‘Polizeiliches Durchgangslager’, PDA) Amersfoort, in the center of the Netherlands.
Mr Armando’s themes are considered to be the tragedy and the inscrutability of human existence, as his works express good and evil, offender and victim, guilt and innocence (Henny de Lange, Trouw 2 July 2018). Mr. Armando coined the often applied phrase ‘Guilty trees, woods, and landscapes’, or ‘Guilty landscape’.