Notes and news
exhibitions in the koninklijke bibliotheek, the hague from 29 march 1999 to the end of february 2001 Roger Raveel en het woord showed Raveel’s work which resulted from his co- operation with the literary men Hugo Claus and Roland Jooris. Roger Raveel was born in 1921 in Machelen-aan-de-Leie in Belgium. After his studies at the academy of visualarts he devoted himself wholly to painting. Towards the end of the 1960s he became more and more interested in the various graphic techniques, such as etching, wood engraving and linoleumcut, lithography and silk-screen printing, which enabled him to make his individual imagery more widely known. He made more than 300 prints, including several bibliophile editions in cooperation with Hugo Claus and Roland Jooris among others. An important joint project of Raveel and Claus is the publication of Genesis in 1969. In this collection of 32 poems, accompanied by 33 lithographies, Raveel and Claus represent in a remarkable way the story of the Creation, which forms the basis of their respective artistic mode of thinking and acting. The friendship with Jooris results in a number of joint publications, the best-known of which has become Het niets, het licht en de dingen (1992). The exhibition Roger Raveel en het woord (29 March to 14 May 1999) was accom- panied by a modest brochure of the same name. Price 1,13.
On 31 May 1999 the exhibition En toch gebeurde het ... [And yet ithap- pened. ..] was opened by Mrs Jeltje van Nieuwenhoven, Speaker of the Dutch Lower Chamber. The occasion for this exhibition was the 25th anniversary of the Depository Library of Dutch Publications. How can be demonstrated to the public that practically everything which is published in the Netherlands in the form of books, magazines, newspapers, o Ycial documents and the new media, covering the most widely divergent subjects, is housed in the Depository? The former editor-in- chief of the Haagsche Courant , Rob Soetenhorst, hit upon the idea that with the rep- resentation of important events of the past 25 years in the Netherlands an accurate impression of the diversity of the depository collection could be provided. He was responsible for the selection of the relevant events and for the selection of books, magazines and newspaper articles. The point of departure in the selection of the topics and the literature about them was the tension existing in the Netherlands between what is planned and what actually happens. In the Netherlands there are two planning bureaux with their respective scenarios and sophisticated calculations to two decimal places, but nevertheless the option of turning a blind eye and a laissez- faire approach is often preferred. Hence the title. Among the topics under scrutiny were ethnic minorities, the plane crash disaster in the Amsterdam Bijlmer district, nuclear energy, language and spelling, and sci- ence. The exhibition ran until 16 September 1999. The accompanyingpublication En toch gebeurdehet . .. (isbn 90-6259-140-X, issn 0169- 3557, number 60 in the series Tentoonstellingscatalogi en – brochures van de Koninklijke Bibliotheek ) is no longer available.
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2002 Quærendo 32/1-2 Also available online – www.brill.nl Notes and news 163
With the exhibition Gebiologeerd door zichzelf: het literaire leven van H.Marsmanen E. duPerron [Fascinated bythemselves: the literary lifeof ...] the kb commemorated these two authors who were both born in 1899 and would become good friends. Du Perron, who initially very much kept his distance from Marsman, exerted an enormous in uence on the poet’s oeuvre. Between the two a warm friendship developed, which is testi ed for instance by the painstaking way in which Du Perron provided Marsman’ s work with commentaries, both for the rst publication, and later on, when Marsman was working on the selection for his Verzameld werk which appeared in 1938. The work of the two authors is abundantly represented in the collection of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. From the holdings of the Letterkundig Museum photographs, letters and personal documents were shown. The exhibition was on view from 1 October through 26 November 1999. The opening gathering saw the presentation of two books: the biography of Mars- man entitled Zee, berg, rivier by Jaap Goedegebuure [= Open Domein , 35] and the cor- respondence between A. Roland Holst and H. Marsman Tussen twee generaties , edited by H.T.M. van Vliet, was published by the Letterkundig Museum [= Achter het Boek , 34]. At the same time a modest exhibition catalogue of the same name appeared in the series Tentoonstellingscatalogi en -brochures van de Koninklijke Bibliotheek , 61, issn 0169- 3557, no longer available.
On 10 December 1999 the chairman of the Vereniging De Friesche Elf Steden [Association of the Eleven Frisian Cities] , Mr Henk Kroes, opened the exhibition Boek & Zopie; boeken en schaatsen uit een particuliere verzameling [Books & Refreshments; books and skates from a private collection]. The exhibition was on view until 18 February 2000. Frost permitting, this association organizes the mammoth skating tour along the eleven cities in the province of Friesland. The collector Arie Broere was responsible for the selection of the books and the skates, so that the skating sport was represented in every facet. An absolute high point was the book Schaatsenrijden by J. Buttingha Wichers from 1888. In this book all aspects of skat- ing are dealt with: skating for pleasure and skating as a branch of sport, Cupid on the ice, skating abroad, fun on the ice in literature and in painting. The exhibition did not only pay attention to the role of skating in literature but the role of skat- ing in children’s books was also examined. A well-known American example of this is The silver skates. A story of life in Holland by M.E. Dodge. This book appeared in 1865 and became a bestseller. In 1867 De zilveren schaatsen appeared, a Dutch adap- tation by J. Andriessen. Other exhibits included all kinds of skates, such as several versions of the Frisian skate, gure skates, the forerunner of the slap skate and the rst racing skates. On the occasion of the exhibition a concise catalogue of the same name appeared. (issn 0169-3557, number 62 in the series Tentoonstellingscatalogi en – brochures van de Koninklijke Bibliotheek ). No longer available.
Until a few generations ago the Netherlands was a truly agricultural country. Not surprisingly, farms form an important part of our cultural heritage. Owing to tech- nological agricultural developments the old buildings are no longer satisfactory. They