Municipal Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen () is an

art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own Collection (artwork), collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. A ...

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...

in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. The name of the museum is derived from the two most important collectors of Frans Jacob Otto Boijmans and

Daniël George van Beuningen Daniël George van Beuningen (4 March 1877, Utrecht, – 29 May 1955, Arlesheim) was a Dutch businessman who became iconic in the city of Rotterdam. DG (as he was generally known) was born in Utrecht. He was the son of Hendrik Adriaan van Beunin ...

. It is located at the Museumpark in the district

Rotterdam Centrum Rotterdam Centrum () is a borough of Rotterdam. It was established on March 3, 2010. The center has 33,983 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2017). Rotterdam Centrum is bounded by the emplacement of the Rotterdam Centraal railway station and the Goud ...

, close to the

Kunsthal The Kunsthal ( en, Art Hall) is an art museum in Rotterdam. It opened in 1992. Overview The museum is situated in the Museumpark of Rotterdam next to the Natuurhistorisch Museum Rotterdam, and in the vicinity of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuni ...

and the

Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more. ...

. The museum opened in 1849. It houses the collections of Frans Jacob Otto Boijmans (1767–1847) and

(1877–1955). The museum has become the house of over 151,000 artworks over 170 years. In the collection, ranging from

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...

, are works of

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2 ...

, and

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarr ...

and other famous collections that includes the masterpieces of the �
Achilles series
�� by

Peter Paul Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque traditio ...

an
‘A Cornfield, in the Background the Zuiderzee’
by

Jacob van Ruisdael Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael (; 1629 – 10 March 1682) was a Dutch painter, draughtsman, and etcher. He is generally considered the pre-eminent landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age, a period of great wealth and cultural ach ...

. In 2013, the museum had 292,711 visitors and was the 14th most visited museum in the Netherlands. The museum has been closed since 2019 due to improvement works and is scheduled to reopen in 2026.

History

The museum was established in 1849 as Museum Boijmans with the collection of Frans Jacob Otto Boijmans (1767–1847). After the agreement between the Rotterdam City Council and Boijmans, the Schielandshuis was bought by City Council to house the collections. The painter and art dealer, Arie Johannes Lamme, was named the museum's first director. Much of the museum's original collection was destroyed in a fire in 1864. After the devastating fire breakout, the Schielandshuis became small to fit the growing collections and visitors of Museum Boijmans. Then the new museum was built in 1929 and opened in Museumpark in 1935. The building was designed by the city architect Adriaan van der Steur (1893-1953). Then the exhibition building was built which was designed by the architect Alexander Bodon (1906-1993) with the purpose of exhibition. "In 2003 the Flemish architects Robbrecht en Daem added new galleries to the exhibition building, siting them like a girdle around Bodon's large rooms. In their galleries they used clear and frosted glass, concrete and parts of the original brick wall. This and the library on the street side are the most recent extensions of the museum until now." The collection of businessman

(1877–1955) was added in 1958, at which point the museum acquired the name Museum Boymans–Van Beuningen. The spelling was changed to 'Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen' in 1996. A spokesman of the Dutch Jewish community, Ronny Naftaniel, demanded without success the removal of Van Beuningen's name because of his acquisitions of Jewish-owned artworks during the Holocaust in the Netherlands. The Van Beuningen de Vriese Pavilion was built and designed by the Hubert-Jan Henket in 1991 to add the collections from the Beuningen.

Architecture

The building of Van der Steur had been built with the consideration of detail lighting, spaces which were inspired by the surroundings. The architect used traditional materials such as brick, natural stone and copper. The exhibition building was built with three large flexible spaces that could be reconfigured depending on each exhibitions needs. Bodon created a 'new wing' at a time when modern art literally and figuratively required space. The rooms had white and diffused lighting from above. The view of the garden from the large window gave views which reputedly distracted the attention of some visitors from the art. The ceiling which showed the arts' character with details of design meaning in them. The pavilion holds the collections of preindustrial household objects. The space of pavilion is very transparent as the building has used the glass and silver-colored steel roof construction. Rotterdam depot boijmans

The construction of Depot Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen was started in 2017 and was officially opened by

king Willem-Alexander Willem-Alexander (; Willem-Alexander Claus George Ferdinand; born ) is King of the Netherlands, having acceded to the throne following his mother's abdication in 2013. Willem-Alexander was born in Utrecht as the oldest child of Princess Beatr ...

on November 5, 2021. It is the world's first fully accessible art depot. The depot has been built in consideration of public and private partnership where inside and outside are intertwined. The plan of the museum is to give the visitors an impression in great scale of the collections which can be seen from the central staircase and landings. The ground floor of the depot consists of a welcoming entrance area with coffee corner, also is used for art handlings. The upper floors are for exhibitions spaces. The atrium gallery which has glass roof has collections from old buildings. The building is built with the sustainability in mind by architects MVRDV. The depot facade is covered by different types of glass with different color code to make the building flexible with the natural lightings. For example, the roof is coded with pink glass, which are transparent to afford visitors a view of the city and museum from the roof. There is also the restaurant Renilde (named after the former curator Renilde Hammacher) and salon Coert (named after the former director of the Rotterdam Museum Coert Ebbinge Wubben) situated.

Collection

Geertgen tot Sint Jans - Virgin and Child - WGA08518

The museum has a diverse collection ranging from

, with somewhat of a focus on

Dutch art Dutch art describes the history of visual arts in the Netherlands, after the United Provinces separated from Flanders. Earlier painting in the area is covered in Early Netherlandish painting and Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting. The his ...

. Much of the collection came to the museum through the two private collections mentioned above, but many others have contributed throughout the years. The museum also holds many great house hold objects which emphasize the history of design over the 8th centuries. The collection of the household objects contain from the medieval pitchers and glass from the

Golden Age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during ...

to the furniture by many prominent designers and with contemporary Dutch design. Among the best-known artists that are exhibited in the permanent exhibition of the museum are

Hieronymus Bosch Hieronymus Bosch (, ; born Jheronimus van Aken ; – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch/Netherlandish painter from Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, generally oil on oa ...

Pieter Bruegel the Elder Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughel) the Elder (, ; ; – 9 September 1569) was the most significant artist of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaker, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so-called genr ...

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...

Maurizio Cattelan Maurizio Cattelan (born 21 September 1960) is an Italian artist. Known primarily for his hyperrealistic sculptures and installations, Cattelan's practice also includes curating and publishing. His satirical approach to art has resulted in him bei ...

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a ...

René Magritte René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and bounda ...

Mark Rothko Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Latv ...

Edvard Munch Edvard Munch ( , ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His best known work, ''The Scream'' (1893), has become one of Western art's most iconic images. His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the dr ...

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...

, and

Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, and is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attribute ...

. The collection also includes one of the richest assembly of works on paper (etchings, drawings, lithographs, etc.) in the world from the Middle Ages to the present times.

Selected works

* '' The Glorification of the Virgin'' (c. 1490–95) by

Geertgen tot Sint Jans Geertgen tot Sint Jans (c. 1465 – c. 1495), also known as Geertgen van Haarlem, Gerrit van Haarlem, Gerrit Gerritsz, Gheertgen, Geerrit, Gheerrit, or any other diminutive form of Gerald, was an Early Netherlandish painter from the northern Low ...

* '' The Wayfarer'' () by

* '' Nest of Owls'' () by

* '' The "Little" Tower of Babel'' () by

* ''Titus at his Desk'' (1655) by

* ''Belisarius receiving alms'' (1669) by

Mattia Preti Mattia Preti (24 February 1613 – 3 January 1699) was an Italian Baroque artist who worked in Italy and Malta. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Saint John. Life Born in the small town of Taverna in Calabria, Preti was called ''Il Ca ...

* ''Hut of the Douaniers with Varengeville'' (1882)

* '' Portrait of Armand Roulin'' (1888) by

* '' On the Threshold of Liberty'' (1929) by

* '' Not to be Reproduced'' (1937)

* ''Impressions of Africa'' (1938)

* '' Shirley Temple, The Youngest, Most Sacred Monster of the Cinema in Her Time'' (1939)

* '' The Face of War'' (1940)

The collections in the museum gives the brief description of history of design. Th
Wrath of Achilles
(c. 1630- 1635) by

, is a

tapestry Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads may ...

from Achilles series. The tapestries flourished hugely from the Gothic period and remained until today. These tapestries are the mirror image of the sketch but these are weaving techniques in which the design are carried out back to front. The tapestries were hung in the walls of prestigious reception rooms during these periods. Th
Tulipcabinet
(c. 1635–1650) by Herman Doomer, is the cabinets built or used during

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

period where the use of decorative motifs were famous. The tulip motif in this cabinet indicates the symbol of wealth and the tulip bulb carries the symbol of enormous sums of money in the 17th century. This also indicates that this type of cabinets were used by noble rich peoples. Th
Display rummer with panorama of the city and harbour of Hamburg
(in 1704–1709) by Johann Simon Rothaer, is a goblet or monumental wineglass which is engraved with cityscape of Hamburg using copper wheel engraving representing the 18th century and pre-industrial design. There are figures on the foot which represents the four seasons. These types of goblets were often used on the buffet during spectacular banquets. Th
Mountainous evening landscape
(c.1665) by Adam Pijanacker, is the two dimensional painting which were widely used as a decorative effect for wall coverings and was fashionable thing to fill the walls with landscape paintings in Netherlands around 17th centuries. Th
Mondial chair
(c. 1957–1958) by

Wim Rietveld Wim Rietveld (1924 - 1985) was a Dutch industrial and furniture designer. His father was the architect and designer Gerrit Rietveld. Education Wim Rietveld received a technical education and began his career as a constructor of large equipment ...

, is the design manufactured during industrial which been created with sheet metal structure and fibre-glass seat reinforced with plastic. It was designed in the collaboration between

Gerrit Rietveld Gerrit Rietveld (24 June 1888 – 25 June 1964) was a Dutch furniture designer and architect. Early life Rietveld was born in Utrecht on 24 June 1888 as the son of a joiner. He left school at 11 to be apprenticed to his father and enrolled at n ...

and his son Wim. The chair gives remarkable simplicity with its special K profile of the back, the seat, the legs. Th
Cupboard 'Carlton'
(c. 1981) by

Ettore Sottsass Ettore Sottsass (Innsbruck, Austria 14 September 1917 – Milan, Italy 31 December 2007) was a 20th century Italian architect, noted for also designing furniture, jewellery, glass, lighting, home and office wares, as well as numerous buildings an ...

, is unique to the design practiced during 80s by Italian designers' group. This design was considered or called as anti-design as the designer had used liberal color with low cultural aspects. "Laminated prints of imitation marble and wood are used to decorate the surfaces of the furniture. One of the most used patterns is one taken from a blown-up image of bacteria. Sottsass once testified to having taken inspiration from tiles from subway bathrooms." Even though the materials used in this furniture were

industrial Industrial may refer to: Industry * Industrial archaeology, the study of the history of the industry * Industrial engineering, engineering dealing with the optimization of complex industrial processes or systems * Industrial city, a city dominate ...

, they were produced in limited series as this design was the protest of designers against the mass consumptions and corporate design style. This development made everyone to think the purpose and meaning of each objects in their surroundings in transition of modernism art deco designs. Along with this type of design collections, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen holds many objects from 1500 to the present day displaying a specific theme in the history of design. For example, the collections of Oriental porcelain in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the building. "The museum used seven rooms to exhibit some thirty themes from the history of design, illustrated by objects from the Middle Ages until now: from a 17th century tulip chest to an Eames chair, from ceramics from the middle ages to china by Hella Jongerius." These designs display us how almost everything was handmade which showed the craftsmanship before industrial period or before different technologies were invented. The collections in the museum shows the evolution of designs over the centuries to present day designs.

Nazi looted art

Dirk Hannema, the director of the Boijmans from 1921 to 1945, acquired for the museum artworks that had been looted from Jewish collectors who were deported and murdered in the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

during the

German occupation of the Netherlands Despite Dutch neutrality, Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940 as part of Fall Gelb (Case Yellow). On 15 May 1940, one day after the bombing of Rotterdam, the Dutch forces surrendered. The Dutch government and the royal family re ...

. Some of the looted artworks have been restituted to the families of the victims. In 2018 an exhibition was created around the history of the Boijman and Nazi looted art. The issue of artworks looted from Jews in the museum collection remains contentious and unresolved.

Activities

The Education Department of the museum organizes children's activities, courses, lectures and tours.

ARTtube

ARTtube is a website with videos about art and design. ARTtube is produced by Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, M HKA Antwerp, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, De Pont, Centraal Museum Utrecht, Museum Jan Cunen and Rotterdam.

Television

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen produces, together with TV Rijnmond, a television series on art. Boijmans TV is based on an idea by Wilfried de Jong. Boijmans TV is created by a team of creative specialists in different disciplines. It is more than an art magazine; apart from the artists, the museum visitor, the attendant and the employee of technical services appear on the series. Each episode of Boijmans TV can be viewed on ArtTube after it has been broadcast.

Administration

Sjarel Ex has been the

museum director Director may refer to: Literature * ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine * ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker * ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty Music * Director (band), an Irish rock band * ''D ...

since 2004.Henny de Lange,
Het charme-offensief van Sjarel Ex werkt
, ''

Trouw ''Trouw'' (; ) is a Dutch daily newspaper appearing in compact size. It was founded in 1943 as an orthodox Protestant underground newspaper during World War II. Since 2009, it has been owned by DPG Media (known as De Persgroep until 2019). ''Tr ...

''. Retrieved on 5 August 2014. The museum had 292,711 visitors in 2013.Jaarverslag 2013
, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 2014. Retrieved on 28 June 2014. That year it was the most visited museum in Rotterdam and the 14th most visited museum in the Netherlands.Daan van Lent & Pieter van Os,
Musea doen het goed: aantal bezoekers in 2013 fors gestegen
, '' NRC Handelsblad'', 2013. Retrieved on 5 August 2014. It had an estimated 270,000 visitors in 2015.

Notes

References

External links

*
Virtual tour of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
provided by Google Arts & Culture * {{Authority control 1849 establishments in the Netherlands Art museums and galleries in the Netherlands Former private collections Modern art museums Museums in Rotterdam Museums established in 1849 Rijksmonuments in Rotterdam Buildings and structures in Rotterdam