20th-century acquisitions

April 17 2015 to August 24 2015
20ste Eeuw

The top floor of the Rijksmuseum, featuring the collection of 20th-century works, has been enriched with a number of gifts and loans. One notable acquisition is the Zig-Zag chair by Dutch furniture designer and architect Gerrit Rietveld (1888-1964), who created the chair with openings and abbreviated armrests in 1932. The chair was donated by one of Rietveld's granddaughters.

stoel Zigzagstoel met gaten en korte armleggers, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld, Gerard van de Groenekan, ca. 1932The presentation of 20th-century art and history objects changes several times each year, partly because photographs and works on paper cannot be exposed to light for long periods. This also offers an opportunity to show a wider range of objects from the dynamic 20th-century collection, which are contextualized with various temporary loans. Currently, the Zig-Zag chair can be seen alongside Rietveld's tube-framed chair, on loan from Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam. Both chairs were built by the furniture maker Gerard van de Groenekan (1904-1994), whom Rietveld used for all of his designs.

Currently on view are two Dutch posters created by the famous French designer Cassandre (1901-1968) for the Etoile du Nord, a high-speed train between Paris and Amsterdam (1927), and for the Holland-America Line's New Statendam (1929). These works were purchased with the support of the F.G. Waller Fund, PON Holdings B.V. and the Johan Huizinga Fund/Rijksmuseum Fund.

The original colour drawings for the interior of Sonneveld house (1933) – produced by the architects Brinkman and Van der Vlugt and based on a colour scheme designed for the Metz & Co interior furnishing store by De Stijl artist Bart van der Leck – are being exhibited in association with Het Nieuwe Instituut. These original designs have never been displayed before.

Further acquisitions

  • Bathing cap designs (1932) by architect Hendrik Wijdeveld, on loan from Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam.
  • Set design by Pyke Koch for the the play In Holland staat een Huis (1936) by M. Nijhoff and A. van Duinkerken; on view for the first time from the Rijksmuseum collection.
  • Standing male figure of wood, metal and paint (1949) by Karel Appel, on loan from the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht.
  • Photographs by Cor Jaring (1936-2013) from the 1960s, purchased with the support of the BankGiro Loterij, the Paul Huf Fund/Rijksmuseum Fund and the Johan Huizinga Fund/Rijksmuseum Fund.

The 20th-century collection is made possible in part by PON Holdings B.V.