Taco Dibbits (; born 7 September 1968) is an art historian from Amsterdam, Netherlands and director of the

Rijksmuseum Amsterdam The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the Ste ...

Life and work

Dibbits studied art history at the

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (abbreviated as ''VU Amsterdam'' or simply ''VU'' when in context) is a public research university in Amsterdam, Netherlands, being founded in 1880. The VU Amsterdam is one of two large, publicly funded research ...

and the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

. He first came to the

as a junior staff member in 1995. From 1997 to 2002, he served as director of the Old Master Paintings department at Christie's, London. He returned to the Rijksmuseum as curator of 17th-century painting in 2002. As head of the department of Fine and Decorative Arts from 2006 to 2008, he led a team of curators of paintings, sculpture, applied art and Asiatic art at the Rijksmuseum. He was instrumental in many of the museum's acquisitions, including

Jan Steen Jan Havickszoon Steen (c. 1626 – buried 3 February 1679) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, one of the leading genre painters of the 17th century. His works are known for their psychological insight, sense of humour and abundance of colour. Lif ...

’s remarkable ''Burgomaster of Delft'' and Gerrit Berckheyde's ''View of the Herengracht, Amsterdam'', and was closely involved in the successful Rembrandt-Caravaggio exhibition of 2006 as well as the Late Rembrandt exhibition of 2015. Since 2002 Dibbits has played an important role in developing the layout of the renewed Rijksmuseum. In 2008 he was named Director of Collections, and he succeeded

Wim Pijbes Willem Meint Jans "Wim" Pijbes (born 9 October 1961) is a Dutch art historian and emeritus General Director of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Pijbes' initiatives at the Rijksmuseum include the museum's complete refurbishment and reopening in April ...

as the museum's General Director on 15 July 2016. Taco Dibbits is also a contributing author to the books ''Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: Artists Born Between 1580 and 1600'' (1997), ''Rembrandt - Caravaggio'' (2006), and ''Dutch Paintings of the 17th Century in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: Artists born between 1570 and 1600'' (2008). He has also published on the drawings of the 16th-century Italian artist

Girolamo Muziano Girolamo Muziano or Mutiani (c. 1532 – 1592), was an Italian painter, one of the most prominent artists active in Rome in the mid-to-late sixteenth century. Life He was born in Acquafredda, near Brescia, but active mainly in Rome. The accoun ...

References

1968 births Living people Dutch art historians Directors of museums in Amsterdam Alumni of the University of Cambridge Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam alumni {{Europe-art-historian-stub