The Shadow of Survival Amsterdam, 1903. A life begins that will eventually be defined by both the creative impulse and the profound darkness of the twentieth century. Gretha Leijden van Amstel, known to many as Greet van Amstel, moves through the early decades of the century with a growing sense of form and space. By 1920, she is in Berlin, living with her first husband, Lodewijk Lopes Cardozo. The city is a crucible of modernism, and here, the first tremors of contemporary art reach her. She returns to Amsterdam in 1923, seeking formal discipline at the Institute for Applied Arts Education.…