In the final phase, from the 1960s onwards – when, coincidentally, he married his second wife, the Dutch-Indonesian Renske van Slooten, who was 29 years his junior – the artist paints the dynamic effects of light and shadow. He uses as his inspiration nudes of his young wife, as well as sunlit interiors, flowers, self portraits and anything else at hand, such as an oil can and stapler and toys from his second daughter, Amanda, born in 1968. There is a sense of release, as these now often large oils are painted direct and at great speed. 

Mann died on January 7, 1980, aged 68, after suffering years of mental instability and heart disease, brought on by his perceived lack of recognition, which he blamed on the rising fashion for abstraction at the expense of figurative art in the 20th century. His last self portrait, entitled “Ecce Homo” (or “Behold The Mann”), shows the artist defiantly posing nude, between two earlier self-portraits