The Rembrandt Year 2019 at The Rembrandt House Museum

Where better to start Rembrandt Year than in the house where it all happened? Nowhere will you come closer to the artist, the family man, the teacher and the art dealer than in this historic place in the heart of Amsterdam. He made his most famous masterpieces here over a period of nearly twenty years, met the most interesting people and experienced his greatest loves. In 2019 the museum will be given over to celebrations of the famous artist with a special programme in his own house. Three exhibitions will shed light on Rembrandt’s life and work from different angles and present well-known and less well-known works by the master.

EXHIBITIONS

Rembrandt’s Social Network
Family, Friends and Acquaintances
1 February – 19 May 2019

With the staging of Rembrandt’s Social Network, The Rembrandt House Museum marks the beginning of Rembrandt Year 2019, 350 years after the artist’s death. The focus is on Rembrandt’s relationships and the role they played in his life and work—because even a great artist like Rembrandt was not a solitary genius. Like any good networker, he actively and deliberately used his social network. He had family and friends who helped him, who bought his works of art, who lent him money and challenged him artistically.

Rembrandt’s social network is explored through a number of key figures, like his old friend Jan Lievens, the connoisseur Jan Six, his saviour Abraham Francen, artist friends such as Roelant Roghman and of course his wife’s family, the Uylenburghs—his ‘blood relatives’. The paintings, drawings and prints, including work by Rembrandt that has never or rarely been seen in the Netherlands, are striking in their informality.

This exhibition is made possible in part by financial support from the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, Fonds 21, Stichting Zabawas and the Turing Foundation.

Inspired by Rembrandt
100 Years of Collecting by The Rembrandt House Museum
7 June – 1 September 2019

The Rembrandt House is not just Rembrandt’s former home and workshop; for more than a century it has been a museum with its own collection. The collection consists primarily of works on paper. Rembrandt’s etchings are of course well represented, but the museum also has prints by his predecessors and contemporaries as well as by modern and contemporary artists who were inspired by Rembrandt.

This exhibition will feature the most remarkable examples from the museum’s collection. Discover the surprising selection of old and new, big and small, fine and sketchy. You will see work by such artists as Rembrandt, Edgar Degas and Pablo Picasso, and also by Horst Janssen, Willem den Ouden, Charles Donker and Glenn Brown.

[Information for the press: for press images click here].

Rembrandt Laboratory
Rembrandt’s Technique Unravelled
21 September 2019 – 16 February 2020

How did Rembrandt make his paintings and etchings? And how do we go about investigating this today? In the autumn of 2019, the museum will create a laboratory-like setting, in which the new insights and the master’s secrets will be revealed. Discover how a drawing by Rembrandt has changed over the centuries, see what was added to an etching by others and consider the dilemmas of researchers and conservators.

This exhibition will bring the world of research into materials and techniques to life. In recent years scientists and restorers have subjected various works of art by Rembrandt to the latest analytical methods. This has often produced surprising and ground-breaking results. Now visitors will be able to experience the scientific methods and techniques for themselves, in the place where the works of art were made.

This exhibition is staged in collaboration with the Rijksmuseum, the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands | Heritage Laboratory, the University of Amsterdam and the Delft University of Technology (united in NICAS), the Monuments and Archeology Department of the city of Amsterdam, the RKD Netherlands Institute for art History, The Watermark Identification in Rembrandt’s Etchings project (WIRE) and independent researchers.

[Information for the press: for press images click here].

Claudy Jongstra
Allium & Onion, Hennep & Hair, Madder & Nettle
1 October 2019 – 16 February 2020

Contemporary artist Claudy Jongstra went in search of Rembrandt’s black. She followed the old paint recipe with some natural dyes and pigments and used them in a fabric diptych: Allium & Onion, Hemp & Hair, Madder & Nettle. She based her work on three natural local materials: flax, hemp and nettles. The flax plant is the source of both the canvas and the linseed oil that Rembrandt used in his oil paint. This art installation made of felt hangs like a curtain in front of the two windows in Rembrandt’s former living room and bedroom in the Rembrandt House Museum.

Jongstra’s diptych not only has different shades of black, but also colour accents she embroidered on the felted canvas. She drew her inspiration for these from the colours of Rembrandt’s most famous diptych: his pendant portraits of Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit. Jongstra’s art installation is a textile and abstract version of the paintings, which can be seen in reproductions in the Rembrandt Laboratory exhibition in the museum’s modern wing.

[Information for the press: for press images click here].

DIARY AND EVENTS

Throughout the year The Rembrandt House Museum stages a variety of events focusing, of course, on Rembrandt. There are lectures, gallery talks, evening events and many more activities. Follow our website for updates to the activity programme.

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Rembrandt and the 17th century 2019

As part of the Netherlands’ theme year, Rembrandt and the 17th century 2019, special activities and exhibitions will be taking place all over the country, with Rembrandt and his time at their heart.

Website: rembrandt-2019.nl

In 2019 NBTC Holland Marketing, Fries Museum, the Mauritshuis, The Rembrandt House Museum, the Rijksmuseum, Museum De Lakenhal, the Jewish Cultural Quarter, the Amsterdam City Archives, Museum Prinsenhof Delft, the Scheepvaartmuseum and the Amsterdam Museum will work together with cities such as Amsterdam, Delft, Dordrecht, Enkhuizen, Haarlem, Hoorn, Leiden and Middelburg.