D66 parliamentarian Salima Belhaj called on Prime Minister Mark Rutte to ask the Royal Family to temporarily abandon the auction of a number of artworks. The Royals want to sell the works at an American auction, but Belhaj hopes they can stay in the Netherlands, NOS reports.
Art
Dec 6 '18 15:50
The Hermitage museum in Amsterdam is giving free entry to anyone called Amalia or Catharina on Friday, to celebrate princess Amalia's 15th birthday. Anyone with a similar name like Katja, Kate, Amelia or Amelie can also get in for free. All you need is a valid identity card, the Telegraaf reports.
Dec 4 '18 12:50
Only hours after the iconic I Amsterdam letters were removed from the Museumplein, new giant letters appeared in front of the Rijksmuseum. These letters spell out 'HUH', and are Amsterdam artist Pauline Wiersema's way of protesting against the disappearance of I Amsterdam, AT5 reports.
Wiersema designed the letters for Dutch Design Week and put them in use on Monday. According to her, the removal of the I Amsterdam letters will not solve the problem with crowds at all.
Dec 4 '18 12:00
Henk Laarmans experienced every bargain hunter's dream come true. He bought a painting for 75 euros at a thrift store, and then sold it for over 30 thousand euros on auction on Monday. The painting in question is 'A sunny day in the dunes' by Johan Aarts, RTL Nieuws reports.
After buying the pointillist painting at a thrift store, Laarmans took it to an art expert at Tussen Kunst and Kitsch, who told him he had something valuable in his possession.
Nov 29 '18 11:40
The police arrested a 16-year-old boy for stealing 150 thousand euros worth of museum pieces from a museum in Amsterdam. The young thief was caught when he went to an art dealer with an Egyptian figurine from the 4th century BC asking for more information about the object, the police said.
The teenager was unlucky in his choice of art dealers, because this dealer had previously sold that specific figurine to an Amsterdam museum. She decided to call the museum and ask whether they had lost it, and that turned out to be the case.
Nov 19 '18 13:16
Rumors that an author recovered a stolen Picasso painting, taken in a daring 2012 heist at the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, were the result of a hoax perpetrated by a Belgian theater group.
Oct 16 '18 09:18
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam will start restoring Rembrandt van Rijn's famous painting The Night Watch in July next year. The painting will be restored in the hall where it's currently hanging, and visitors to the museum are welcome to watch the process. The restoration can also be followed online, the museum announced on Tuesday.
The Night Watch will be restored in a clear glass chamber designed by French architect Jean Michel Wilmotte. It's last major restoration happened 40 years ago, following an attack on the painting in 1975.
Aug 13 '18 14:40
Three hundred drones lit up the Amsterdam sky above the IJ with a light show on Saturday night. The drones flew in different formations, inspired by the flight patterns of starlings, AT5 reports.
The show premiered in Miami last year. A special exception was made to have the show in Amsterdam on Saturday, because drones are actually forbidden in the airspace around Schiphol airport.
Aug 3 '18 14:40
On Tuesday the police recovered seven valuable paintings that were stolen from a resident of Voerendaal. The paintings include works by Mondriaan, Mesdag, Tischbein and V. Kulagina, among others, and are worth hundreds of thousands of euros, the police said in a statement on Thursday. Three suspects were arrested.
Jul 24 '18 16:00
On Monday the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam called on people who make the Hajj, the pilgrimage, to Mecca to take selfies of their trip for a new exhibition, despite the fact that the Saudi authorities banned taking photos and selfies at religious and spiritual places in the country last year, AT5 reports.
The photo ban also applies to the Masjid al-Haram mosque, which is known as a pilgrimage site during Hajj.
Jul 3 '18 13:30
Amsterdam West wants to put up an artwork in the district showing deceased mayor Eberhard van der Laan's final instruction to his people: "
Jun 15 '18 12:50
Artist Joost Zwanenburg made an error when he painted a new war memorial at the Herenhof shopping center in Alphen aan den Rijn. The plane depicted on the monument is not the Halifax that crashed in 1944, as it was meant to be, but a different type, NU.nl reports.
Jun 11 '18 15:20
The Amsterdam Art Council advised the Stedelijk Museum to focus on its own comprehensive collection instead of trying to compete with a "jet set" of super rich art collectors and museums with much higher budgets, NU.nl reports.
In December the then Amsterdam mayor and aldermen asked the Art Council to advise the Stedelijk Museum on the future positioning of the museum. Focusing on its own collection was the main part of that advice, according to the newspaper.
May 30 '18 16:10
Amsterdam has the most to offer of all municipalities in the Netherlands when it comes to culture. Maastricht and Leeuwarden are in second and third place respectively, according to the new Atlas for Municipalities presented in Leeuwarden on Wednesday afternoon, Het Parool reports.
Among the provinces, Groningen has the biggest cultural offering, followed by Zeeland and Noord-Holland. Flevoland is last on the ranking.
May 25 '18 09:16
Photographer Erwin Olaf donated 412 photographs, seven videos and countless magazines to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The museum also bought 60 of his other photographs and three videos for 200 thousand euros, the Volkskrant reports.
The Rijksmuseum will host an exhibition of Olaf's work next year. According to Olaf and the museum, the photographs are the "core collection" of his oeuvre. Every two years, the museum and Olaf will consult and decide what will be added to the collection.
May 16 '18 13:40
The Anne Frank Foundation released two previously unseen pages from the diary of Anne Frank. On the two pages, which were covered by brown paper, the Jewish girl wrote sexual jokes and what she thought about sex education, ANP reports.
Apr 18 '18 14:30
The Noordbrabants Museum bought a Van Gogh painting titled Still life with bottles and shell from a private individual abroad for 2.5 million euros, the museum announced on Wednesday. This is the third painting by Vincent van Gogh that the museum in Den Bosch bought in as many years.
Apr 12 '18 15:50
The success of a few large museums in the Netherlands created the image that all is well in the museum world, but that is not the case at all, according to the Council for Culture. Small museums in the country are struggling, the Council warns, RTL Nieuws reports.
Public attractions like the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam with its collection of Rembrandts, or the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague with its Mondriaans, have nothing to complain about. But the smaller museums are having a very hard time attracting visitors, according to the Council.
Apr 10 '18 13:50
Els and Jan Blokker, founder of the Blokker concern, are donating their collection of paintings by Dutch avant-gardists from around 1900 to the Singer Laren museum, the museum announced in a video. The so-called Nardinc Collection consists of over a hundred paintings, NOS reports.
Apr 10 '18 13:10
A lifelike doll of Amalia, crown princess of the Netherlands, will be on display at the Art Dolls Expo in Amsterdam this weekend. After that the doll will be auctioned off on Catawiki. This is the first time a doll is made to look like a Dutch princess, RTL Nieuws reports.
The doll was made by Russian doll maker Elena Timkaeva and stands 69 centimeters tall.
Mar 28 '18 14:50
Artist Rob Scholte wants Prime Minister Mark Rutte to intervene in a conflict between him and the mayor of Den Helder. Scholte has a museum in an empty post office building in Den Helder, but the municipality sold the building and now he has to leave, Het Parool reports.
Mar 12 '18 16:00
The Dutch government is allocating an annual 80 million euros a year for culture education, according to the memorandum Culture in an open society that Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven of Education, Culture and Science presented on Monday. Her ambition is to make sure that the cultural sector "flourishes", NOS reports.
Mar 9 '18 15:20
The Fries Museum won a Global Fine Art Award in New York for its exhibition of work by Dronryp born artist Lourens Alma-Tadema (1836-1912). In the museum world, this award is also known as a 'museum Oscar', NOS reports.
The exhibition, titled Alma-Tadema: classic seduction, featured more than 80 works showing scenes from Antiquity. It attracted more than 158 thousand visitors this winter, a record for the Fries Museum.
Mar 6 '18 15:10
A rarely seen early work by Vincent van Gogh will be displayed by art dealer Ivo Bouwman at the international art fair TEFAF in Maastricht on Saturday. The painting, titled Cityscape with drawbridge, has been privately owned for 114 years, ANP reports.
