Bonnefanten Museum
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The Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht, Netherlands is the foremost museum of fine art and contemporary art in the province of Limburg.
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[edit] History
The museum was founded in 1884 as the historical and archaeological museum of the Dutch province of Limburg. The name Bonnefanten Museum is derived from the French bons enfants ('good children'), the popular name of a monastery in Maastricht that housed the museum from 1951 until 1978.
In 1995, the museum moved to its present location, a building designed by the Italian architect Aldo Rossi.[citation needed] With its landmark cupola overlooking the River Maas, it is one of Maastricht's most prominent modern buildings.[1]
Since 1999, the museum has become exclusively an art museum. The historical and archaeological collections were housed elsewhere. In 2009, the museum celebrated its 125th anniversary with the exhibition Exile on Main Street.
[edit] Collection
The combination of old art and contemporary art under one roof gives the Bonnefanten Museum its distinctive character. The department of old masters is located on the first floor and displays highlights of early Italian painting and Flemish and Dutch painting from the 16th and 17th centuries. Exhibited on the same floor is the museum's extensive collection of Medieval sculpture. The contemporary art collection is exhibited on the second floor and focuses on American Minimalism[1], Italian Arte Povera[1] and Concept Art.
[edit] Old Art
Highlights of the collection Medieval sculpture include wood sculptures by Jan van Steffeswert and the Master of Elsloo, and wood, marble, alabaster and ivory sculpture from Brussels, Antwerp, France, England and the Lower Rhine region (Germany).
Giovanni del Biondo, Domenico di Michelino, Jacopo del Casentino and Sano di Pietro are the main representatives of early Italian painting.
The collection Flemish and Dutch painting (partly on loan from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam) includes paintings by Marinus van Reymerswaele, Roelant Savery, Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Pieter Aertsen, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Peter Paul Rubens, Jacob Jordaens and David Teniers the Younger.
[edit] Contemporary Art
Prominent artists of American Minimalism (Sol LeWitt, Richard Serra, Robert Ryman, Robert Mangold, Bruce Nauman), Conceptualism (Joseph Beuys, Marcel Broodthaers, Jan Dibbets) and Italian Arte Povera (Luciano Fabro, Mario Merz, Jannis Kounellis) form the basis of the permanent collection of contemporary art on the second floor.
In 2006, an important collection of postwar art was given to the museum on a long-term loan by Jeanne and Charles Vandenhove. The Vandenhove collection strengthened the museum's position as a stronghold in the Netherlands for American Minimalism, as well as adding to the collection a number of artists representing French Conceptualism (Daniel Buren, Christo, Christian Boltanski), Abstract Expressionism (Cy Twombly), Neo-Expressionism (Hermann Nitsch, Arnulf Rainer, Anselm Kiefer), École de Paris (Alfred Manessier, Pierre Soulages) and COBRA (Asger Jorn, Karel Appel).
Further artists represented in the museum's collection include Richard Deacon, Gilbert & George, Barry Flanagan, Peter Doig, Gary Hume, Luc Tuymans and Neo Rauch.
The collection also stands out for its room-size installations by younger artists from the Netherlands (Atelier Van Lieshout), Belgium (Patrick Van Caeckenbergh), Switzerland (Roman Signer), Austria (Franz West) and other countries.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Martin Dunford (2010). The Rough Guide to The Netherlands. Penguin. pp. 327–328. ISBN 978-1-84836-882-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=8j03xxJasTMC&pg=PA393. Retrieved 24 November 2011.
[edit] External links
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