up to and including 26 May 2019
When the Shutters Close
The iconic Van der Steur wing, the famous redbrick building constructed around ninety years ago, will close for renovations on 14 January 2019, and the museum will begin rehousing the collection.
While the old wing of the museum by architect Ad van der Steur is emptied from mid-January, a small part of the collection will remain on view. A selection of highlights from the collection will be on display in the galleries surrounding the Bauhaus exhibition until 26 May.
Highlights from the Collection
The museum’s collection is dynamic: it changes as it grows and in response to research and new insights. In the exhibition ‘When the Shutters Close: Highlights from the Collection’, curator Friso Lammertse shows the diversity of the collection through seventy masterpieces by artists including Max Beckmann, Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel, Edgar Degas, Jan van Eyck, Carel Fabritius, Fra Angelico, Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Vincent van Gogh, Pyke Koch, Oskar Kokoschka, Sarah Lucas, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, Tejo Remy, Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, Auguste Rodin and Jan van Scorel.
New Acquisition: Master of the Holy Veronica
The first gallery centres on a triptych depicting the Madonna and child with saints and scenes from the life of Christ from around 1400 by the Master of Saint Veronica, who was active in Cologne. This masterpiece in the International Gothic style was recently acquired at auction in London. The new acquisition is one of the most beautiful works in Northern European painting of the fifteenth century.
For Friso Lammertse, curator of old master paintings and sculptures, the triptych was high on his wish list:
‘The painting shows in an unbelievably beautiful way the elegance and refinement that is so typical of the International Gothic. It is a key work from this period and is deeply moving, especially in the tenderness in the central panel, which contrasts so starkly with the scene on the exterior showing a solitary Christ carrying the cross.’
This rare and remarkable work has been acquired thanks to generous financial contributions from the Rembrandt Association, the Mondriaan Fund, the BankGiro Lottery, Stichting Bevordering van Volkskracht, the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds (Breeman Talle Fonds), the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Foundation and several individuals.
Collection Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is a unique and multifaceted museum, established in the heart of Rotterdam almost 170 years ago. A visit to the museum is a journey through the history of art, featuring Dutch and international masterpieces from the early Middle Ages to the present day, from Bosch and Rembrandt to Van Gogh and Dalí. The museum charts the development of Impressionism and Modernism with works by Monet, Mondrian and Magritte and has an extensive collection of Pop art with works by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and many others. The museum also has an extensive collection of Dutch design, with examples by Gerrit Rietveld, Gispen, Hella Jongerius, Bertjan Pot and Studio Wieki Somers, and works by eminent foreign designers such as Marcel Breuer, Charles and Ray Eames, Ettore Sottsass and Konstantin Grcic.
Transit Boijmans Van Beuningen
On 27 May 2019, the museum will close for essential renovation and modernisation. During this Transit period, the museum will present its world-class collection in other locations in Rotterdam and around the world. The museum has struck up partnerships with eight neighbouring venues in the city for the project ‘Boijmans Next Door’. Wide-ranging selections from the collection will remain visible in eleven surprising exhibitions. In addition, Boijmans will also be operating abroad, with travelling exhibitions. From the beginning of the 2019 school year, schoolchildren in Rotterdam will get to spend time with real works of art from the collection in the project ‘Boijmans in the Classroom’. Meanwhile, the construction of the Boijmans Van Beuningen Depot continues apace. The world’s first publicly accessible art storage facility will open in early 2021 and will safely house and display the museum’s collection of 154,000 artworks.
