DEN BOSCH.- Het Noordbrabants Museum and the JK Art Foundation have reached an agreement on the long-term loan to the museum of the Foundation’s outstanding collection of over 550 works dating from 1500 to the present day including masterpieces by Brueghel, Rubens, Mondrian, Brancusi, Van Dongen, Picasso, Magritte, Delaunay, Fontana, Dalí, Modigliani, Lewitt, Dumas, Kapoor, Tuymans and Eliasson. The JK Art Foundation’s collection is considered one of most important private art collections in the Netherlands and the long-term loan of the collection will enable the museum to further strengthen its position as a leading cultural institution.

A dream come true

‘A dream come true!’, says Charles de Mooij, director of Het Noordbrabants Museum, describing the JK Art Foundation’s pledge to transfer its full collection to the museum, in time. Het Noordbrabants Museum and the JK Art Foundation have been working together for many years. Since 2010, the museum has frequently exhibited works from this private collection, both in support of exhibitions and in presenting its permanent collection. The acquisition of this collection offers Het Noordbrabants Museum the opportunity to organise even more attractive programmes in the future.

The JK Art Foundation’s collection

Wim Pijbes, former director of the Rijksmuseum, describes the collection, assembled by a Brabant art collector over the course of more than three decades, as ‘a superb collection unequalled in the Netherlands.’ Adding: ‘The collection of the JK Art Foundation is wide-ranging, striking and of high quality. Several of its pieces would not be out of place in the world’s finest museums. The collection will therefore appeal to a wide audience.’

The JK Art Foundation’s collection holds works from the 16th and 17th century, from the Northern and Southern Netherlands; including paintings by Jan Brueghel the Elder, Adriaen Coorte, Dirck van Delen, Jan van Goyen, Peter Paul Rubens and Michel Sittow. In addition, the collection contains many works from the first half of the 20th century: Giacomo Balla, Constantin Brancusi, Salvador Dalí, Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay-Terk, Kees van Dongen, James Ensor, Bart van der Leck, Tamara de Lempicka, René Magritte, Amedeo Modigliani, Piet Mondrian, Constant Permeke, Pablo Picasso and many other modern artists. Contemporary artists are also well represented: Josef Albers, Armando, Joseph Cornell, René Daniëls, Marlene Dumas, Olafur Eliasson, Lucio Fontana, Anish Kapoor, Yayoi Kusama, Sol LeWitt, Luc Tuymans etc., etc.

World-famous Museums

The foundation very frequently lends works to museums in the Netherlands and abroad, as it has recently done for exhibitions at the MoMA in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Albertina in Vienna, the Fondazione Prada in Venice, the Museum of Fine Arts Bern, the National Art Center in Tokyo and many other world-famous museums.

Coming soon: Discovering Modernity

A selection of 100 highlights from the collection of the JK Art Foundation will be on display in the exhibition Discovering Modernity at Het Noordbrabants Museum from 18 December through 26 February 2022. In this exhibition, organised in cooperation with the Singer Museum in Laren, virtually all major European art movements of the 20th and 21st centuries will be represented.

Additional value of the collection to the museum

The museum’s collection reflects the art, history and culture of Brabant and the Southern Netherlands. In recent years, exhibition policy has become increasingly international, with particular attention to the art of neighbouring and culturally related Belgium. In this respect, the collection of the JK Art Foundation has great additional value. The works in this collection not only enhance the quality of the museum’s holdings, they also add a very welcome national and international context. Acquiring this private art collection represents a qualitative impulse of immeasurable value. The management, staff and supervisory board are therefore extremely grateful to the JK Art Foundation for the trust it has shown.

Annabelle Birnie, member of the board of the JK Art Foundation: ‘The board of the JK Art Foundation is delighted with the enthusiasm with which the collection is being welcomed by the province of North Brabant, the city of ’s-Hertogenbosch and Het Noordbrabants Museum. It is pleased to continue its long-standing cooperation with the museum and is looking forward to our future together.’