Blockbuster: Vermeer exhibition helps more than the Rijksmuseum
-
Loading... - Hernandez Isabella
- 26 Apr 2023
- 57 Views
- 0 Like
- 0 Comment
When the deceptively simple titled ‘Vermeer’ exhibit opened at the Rijksmuseum last month, it was to great fanfare and accolades. ‘This is not just a once in a lifetime’ exhibit, said the museum’s director general Taco Tibbits. ‘This is a now or never.’ ‘Dazzlingly confident and impetuously spare,’ said one review. ‘An unmissable feast,’ said another. People are indeed flocking to this first-ever retrospective in the country’s national museum of one of its most renowned and loved painters. ‘We’ve never had sales before an exhibition opened of more than 200,000 tickets,’ said Dibbits. By the second day of the exhibition, all 450,000 tickets had been purchased. One month after opening, the exhibit was completely sold out. ‘We’ve extended opening hours as much as we can, but we won’t be able to accommodate everybody who wants to see the exhibition here.’ Blockbuster exhibitions This blockbuster exhibition, which features 28 Vermeer paintings out of the some 37 of his works still known to exist, have been brought together from collections as far away as New York, Tokyo, Berlin and even just down the A4 from The Hague. That represents more than three-quarters of the artist’s oeuvre.
‘Vermeer is an amazing artist, but the rarity of his works—he only painted about 45 paintings—means that more than 80% of his paintings are here,’ said Dibbits. ‘That’s never happened before in history and will probably never happen again.’ Read More…
