Museum van Bommel van Dam is a Dutch museum of

modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradit ...

Venlo Venlo () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in southeastern Netherlands, close to the border with Germany. It is situated in the province of Limburg (Netherlands), ...

in the southeast

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. The museum belongs to the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

/Dutch cooperation Crossart, a partnership between 7 German museums in Westfalen and 4 Dutch museums in Gelderland and Limburg. Exhibitions are held of paintings or drawings, sculpture or photography. The museum was founded by the couple Maarten and Reina van Bommel-van Dam, who started collecting modern art after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Maarten van Bommel was a banker and artlover. In 1969, the house in Amsterdam, belonging to the couple became too small. For this reason they decided to donate the entire collection of about 1,200 paintings, drawings, etchings and lithographs to the Municipality of

, under one condition, which consisted of the creation of a museum in a building connected to a private house, where the couple could live. This museum named after them was opened in 1971. It shows the artworks that pleased them and they did not try to concentrate in one direction or the other. Typical for the collection is the personal liking of an object or an interest in its material, a certain coloring or in its provenance. For instance they often collected ethnological art. But it could very well be that their eye fell on an abstract canvas of Kees van Bohemen or a woodcut of

Hokusai , known mononymously as Hokusai, was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. His woodblock printing in Japan, woodblock print series ''Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji'' includes the iconic print ''The Gr ...

. They were the first private collectors to buy work from local artists from Limburg like Ger Lataster and Aad de Haas. In the 1950s and 1960s works of Melle, Armando, Edgar Fernhout and Jan Schoonhoven were added; the art of Shinkichi Tajiri,

Karel Appel Christiaan Karel Appel (; 25 April 1921 – 3 May 2006) was a Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet. He started painting at the age of fourteen and studied at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam in the 1940s. He was one of the founders of the avant-gard ...

, Gerrit Benner, Eugène Brands,

Constant Nieuwenhuys Constant Anton Nieuwenhuys (21 July 1920 – 1 August 2005), better known as Constant, was a Dutch painter, sculptor, graphic artist, author and musician. Early period Constant was born in Amsterdam on 21 July 1920 as the first son of Pieter N ...

Guillaume Cornelis van Beverloo Corneille – Guillaume Cornelis van Beverloo (3 July 1922 – 5 September 2010), better known under his pseudonym Corneille, was a Dutch artist. Corneille was born in Liège, Belgium, although his parents were Dutch and moved back to the Nether ...

, Jaap Nanninga, Lucebert, Anton Rooskens en Theo Wolvekamp stand out by the fact that these artworks represent early periods. The same can be said about Rudi Bierman, Herbert Fiedler en Arie Kater; Bram Bogart, Wim de Haan, Anton Heyboer en Jaap Wagemaker. Later acquisitions of the

CoBrA COBRA or Cobra, often stylized as CoBrA, was a European avant-garde art group active from 1948 to 1951. The name was coined in 1948 by Christian Dotremont from the initials of the members' home countries' capital cities: Copenhagen (Co), Brussels ...

movement were made, as well as of informal art or material art. Maarten van Bommel died in 1991. His wife Reina van Dam, born in

Voorthuizen Voorthuizen ( Dutch Low Saxon: ''Voorthuzen'') is a village in the municipality of Barneveld, in the Dutch province of Gelderland. Tourism Voorthuizen is a tourist village, located on the edge of the Veluwe. East of the village is a high ...

on 31 December 1910, died on 29 July 2008 at the age of 97.

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External links

* * {{Authority control 1971 establishments in the Netherlands Art museums and galleries in the Netherlands Art museums and galleries established in 1971 Modern art museums Museums in Venlo 20th-century architecture in the Netherlands