The Geometry of Light and Shadow Born in Amsterdam in 1901, Mark Kolthoff spent much of his life observing the way light settles on surfaces. His early years at the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam were marked by a quiet friction. While his teachers pushed for the weight of monumental painting, he found himself drawn to the sharp edges of Cubism. This preference for the avant-garde created a distance between him and the traditionalist expectations of his instructors. He sought a different way to see, one that relied on the play of diagonals and the graphic impact of shadow. In the 1930s, his eyes m…