Boijmans Studies

In 2007, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen launched a series of scholarly publications about the museum’s collection: the ‘Boijmans Studies’. The aim of the publications is to document the collection and the history of the museum and to make this information available to a broad public.

The publications encompass catalogues of specific aspects of the museum’s collection, restoration reports, and collections of essays on specific subjects. Where possible, the publications are linked to an exhibition. The museum strives to publish two titles each year. The series is finances by contributions from various funding bodies and individuals.

The members of the edutorial board are:
- dr. Peter van der Coelen, curator of prints and drawings
- drs. Els Hoek, educational curator
- drs. Saskia van Kampen-Prein, curator of modern and contemporary art
- dr. Sandra Kisters, head of collections and research
- MA Esmee Postma, publishing assistant
- drs. Sabine Terra, publisher

The researchers:
Art-historical research is carried out within the museum by the curators Peter van der Coelen, Alexandra van Dongen, Saskia van Kampen-Prein, Annemartine van Kesteren, Rosie Razzall, Francesco Stocchi, Ruben Suykerbuyk and Sue-an van der Zijp. External experts also contribute to the Boijmans Studies as researchers and authors.

'Boijmans Studies' titles published in English:

A biography of the Boijmans design collection by Mienke Simon Thomas (2022)

The design department is without doubt the most varied part of the collection at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. In its publicly accessible storage building, anyone can marvel at the diversity of this 50,000-piece collection. Objects range from artisanal cooking pots to unique engraved commemorative glasses and mass-produced tubular steel chairs. But why were all these objects collected in the first place, and what do they have to tell us? What is the link between a dress by Viktor&Rolf, a glass by Copier, a silver salt cellar by Van Vianen, and a typewriter by Sottsass?

Mienke Simon Thomas, curator at the museum from 1993 to 2021, describes who or what determined the museum's acquisitions over the past 175 years, and how advancing insight constantly changed that policy. Central to this Boijmans Study are the passions of private collectors, the emancipation of the study area, societal changes and, last but not least, the personal preferences of the directors and staff.

This publication is for sale at the webshop.

A biography of the Boijmans design collection by Mienke Simon Thomas (2022)

Creative Chance. Surrealist Art and Literature from the Laurens Vancrevel and Frida de Jong Collection by Saskia van Kampen-Prein and Laurens Vancrevel, 2021

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen’s Surrealism collection is world famous, but this Boijmans Study is not devoted to the oeuvres of great names in the canon like Salvador Dalí and René Magritte. Instead, it tells the story of the idiosyncratic finds made by the Dutch collectors Laurens Vancrevel and his wife Frida de Jong. Long before museums started to take notice, the couple had collected art and poetry by then relatively unknown Surrealists. Over the years, they let themselves be guided by chance, friendships and random encounters, and this has resulted in a unique collection of Surrealist art from which the museum has been allowed to make a selection. The Study examines the fifty artworks that have been gifted and reflects on two approaches to collecting: the creation of a private collection and the way Surrealism was acquired by Dutch museums like Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.

This publication is for sale at the webshop.

Creative Chance. Surrealist Art and Literature from the Laurens Vancrevel and Frida de Jong Collection by Saskia van Kampen-Prein and Laurens Vancrevel, 2021

James Lee Byars. The Sage in the Tower by Els Hoek, 2020

During his first European exhibition in 1969, James Lee Byars presented three light-hearted actions, and with them provided a guideline for experiencing his art: as a viewer you had to believe in the reality he was offering. Even if that reality was too good to be true, too small to be taken seriously, or was over before you realized it. The less you had to go by, the greater the scope for your imagination.
The American artist travelled the world throughout his life. Thanks to this nomadic lifestyle, he developed an extensive international network that he maintained with letters. His correspondence with the Flemish former museum director Flor Bex and his wife Lieve De Deyne, and with Wies Smals, founder of De Appel in Amsterdam, is the point of departure for this Boijmans Study. The activities of Byars in the Netherlands and Belgium are given a central position, but attention is also paid to his formative years in Japan.

This publication is for sale at the webshop.

James Lee Byars. The Sage in the Tower by Els Hoek, 2020

A Contorversial Past. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and the Second World War by Ariëtte Dekker et al., 2018

The story of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen during the Second World War is an emotionally charged one: a director who bent to the will of the occupying power and patrons who sold works of art to the Nazis. At the same time, the museum played an important role as a centre of art and culture and the guardian of culture in the devastated city of Rotterdam. This Boijmans Study examines the role of the museum and its patrons during the war. The story would not be complete, however, without an account of the museum’s spectacular development in the interwar years. To a significant extent, it had the Rotterdam shipping magnates D.G. van Beuningen and Willem van der Vorm and the Haarlem banker Franz Koenigs to thank for the growth of its collection. Their passion for collecting and their patronage are seen against the background of great changes in affluence, which drove a flourishing international art trade. The book ends with an account of seven special cases of research into the sometimes complicated provenance of works of art in the museum’s collection.

This publication is for sale at the webshop.

An Eyckian Crucifixion Explored: Ten Essays on a Drawing by Friso Lammerts, Albert Elen et al., 2016

In 2012 a hitherto unknown ‘Eyckian’ drawing of the Crucifixion was exhibited in The Road to Van Eyck in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Forty years earlier Wim Hofman, a psychiatrist and art collector from Groningen, had bought the drawing – as a reproduction – for just ten guilders at a local estate auction. He was convinced, however, and rightly so, that it was an original work of art, and he spent the rest of his life researching it. The Rotterdam museum acquired the drawing shortly after the exhibition. In this book leading specialists examine various aspects of this mysterious drawing – its discovery, the scientific and technical research into the materials, and the identity of the artist. Is it a work by Jan van Eyck himself or a workshop assistant, or is it a late fifteenth-century copy of a work by the famous progenitor of Netherlandish painting?

This publication is for sale at the webshop.

'Please write!' Paul Thek and Franz Deckwitz: An Artists’ Friendship by Roosmarijn Homp and Adelheid Smit, 2015

In 1967 the 33-year-old American artist Paul Thek embarked on an extended stay in Europe. This represented a turning point in his career. The environments that he created between 1968 and 1973 in various European museums were made up of fantasy landscapes replete with symbolic meaning. The creative process, usually with the assistance of others, played a crucial role in these exhibitions. The Amsterdam-based artist Franz Deckwitz was one of those who assisted Thek but he was, above all, a loyal friend. Their friendship is documented in the Paul Thek archive that Deckwitz’s family gave on permanent loan to Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in 2011. Comprising letters, photographs and other documents, it forms the basis of this Boijmans Study, which focuses on the friendship between the two artists and Thek’s links with the Netherlands and Rotterdam.