codart Courant 3/December 2001 codartCourant contents Published by Stichting codart P.O. Box 76709 2 A word from the director 11 Calls for papers nl-1070 ak Amsterdam 2 Committees 11 Symposium on The Brueghel enterprise The Netherlands 2 Program Committee 11 codart activities in spring 2002 3 Reports from the regional committees 11 Study trip to Moscow, 2-6 March 2002 Editors: Gary Schwartz 3 German-speaking countries, 13 codart vijf: Early Netherlandish Wietske Donkersloot Scandinavia and Baltic States art and its dispersal, 10-13 March 2002 t +31 (0)20 3054 515 3 Austria 17 [Historians of Netherlandish Art f +31 (0)20 3054 500 4 Estonia congress, 14-17 March 2002] e [email protected] 5 Germany 17 Study trip to Scotland, 6 Latvia 13-18 June 2002 codart board: 7 Central and Eastern Europe 18 codart in the United States Henk van der Walle, chairman 7 Hungary 18 Website news Wim Jacobs, operations manager of the 8 Poland 19 Membership directory Netherlands Institute of Cultural 28 codart dates Heritage (Instituut Collectie Nederland), secretary-treasurer Rudi Ekkart, director of the Netherlands Institute for Art History (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie) Jan Houwert, director of the Wegener publishing company Paul Huvenne, director of the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp Jeltje van Nieuwenhoven, Speaker of the House of the Netherlands Parliament codartis an international council for curators of Dutch and Flemisch art. It supports inter-museum cooperation in the study and display of art from the Low Countries through a variety of means, including congresses, study trips, pub- lications and a website (www.codart.nl). The organization was founded and is aided by the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (Instituut Collectie Nederland). It enjoys the generous support of the Netherlands Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the Ministry of Welfare, Health and Culture of the Flemish Community. codartcourantappears twice a year. Contributions are welcome. codartcourantis designed by Typography & Other Serious Matters, Rotterdam issn1388 9559 codart Courant 3/December 2001 2 A word from the may be affected in a serious and long-lasting Committees way. The insurance industry is in a quandary director about the threat of continued terrorism. In Program committee their efforts to protect themselves, insurance The program committee meets with the There is only one subject to write about, the companies are talking about removing director and his associate to evaluate the subject that was thrust violently on the world coverage for terrorist attacks altogether from activities of codartand to discuss themes on September 11th. Over the months that have their policies. Even if the insurers do not go for future congresses and destinations for since passed, each of us has had time to form that far, for the coming time we can be sure study trips. Suggestions from codart our own thoughts about what happened, why that coverage for the transportation of members on the yearly questionnaires are it happened, what consequences it has entailed expensive objects will not be available at the reviewed, and a list of desirable themes and and what is in store for us now and in the long rather low rate museums have been used to destinations is drawn up. The committee goes run. Many of these thoughts evoke the paying. According to a well-informed article in over the plans for coming events in detail. unbearable memory of the events themselves. The Art Newspaper of October 2001, the Since its inception at codart driein All of us have relived in our minds the terrible conditions for courier service are also likely to Antwerp, the committee has met regularly. final minutes and seconds of those on board be affected. The stricter security measures at All but two of the meetings took place in the the four hijacked planes and of the victims in airports and on board airplanes will make it Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documen- the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The more difficult to accompany art shipments tatie. On the agenda at the current meetings images of the planes crashing into the Twin and to protect them en route. are the congress and study trip themes for Towers and their collapse have been seared These developments, even if they are codart vijf, zesand the more distant into our memories. We try helplessly to temporary, as we all hope, will demand future, as well as additional study trips. In 2002 imagine what it means to be a refugee among flexibility and creativity from curators and additional study trips have been planned to hundreds of thousands of others in one of directors. They will also increase the need for Moscow in March and to Scotland in June. poorest regions in the world. mutual help and accommodation between Outstanding programs for these trips have In the efforts to pick ourselves up again, institutions and curators. In that regard, it is been worked out by Lia Gorter, the codart many heartening things were said. The work fortunate that codartis already in place. consultant on all matters pertaining to Russia, of artists and art historians and museums was Look over the membership directory in the and Julia Lloyd Williams, respectively. Guus said to have special meaning for humanity at a back of this issue of the Courant and think of all van den Hout brought in essential elements of time like this. I wonder. For some individuals the possibilities it offers for new and renewed the Moscow project. this in undoubtedly true and important. But partnerships. Following codart vijf(Early Nether- the public at large did not respond this way. After a shock or tragedy, people have the landish art and its dispersal), the themes Instead, visits to museum in America dropped tendency to withdraw into themselves. That is highest on our list of priorities are Dutch and off sharply. On the whole, I think it better to a normal reaction, but not a constructive one. Flemish art in (in alphabetical order): avoid exalted assertions about the healing This is a time when we need each other more France power of art or scholarship. than ever. We hope that you will take The Netherlands Speaking for myself, my motivation to advantage of the opportunity offered by Poland work and my interest in daily affairs suffered codartto ask each other for cooperation and The United States badly on September 11th and in the weeks to extend it. Activities concerning Dutch and Flemish art in afterwards. The news was a constant Gary Schwartz these countries are being reviewed as possible distraction, and I seemed to have less energy reasons for planning a congress in a particular and attention. However, among the doubts year. that entered my mind unasked, never did I The program committee also discusses doubt the value of my work. Not for new proposals for membership of codart, on the reasons, but for the same reasons that brought basis of the guidelines laid down in the me to it in the first place, codartstill directors’ letter to the membership of 2 August seemed to me as worthwhile an endeavor as 2001. Meetings of the program committee, any to which a person might devote himself. finally, provide an opportunity for the director As I begin to recover, I am grateful that the to consult a group of members on other issues work is here, and that it still provides such as well. satisfaction. As before September 11th, a great deal of that satisfaction derives from the fact The members of the program committee are: that codartconsists of a network of people I Peter van den Brink Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht know and like, and from my feeling that I have Charles Dumas rkd, The Hague, secretary something substantial to offer them. Stephen Hartog icn, Rijswijk, chairman Another reason for gratitude is that none of Liesbeth Helmus Centraal Museum, Utrecht our members or colleagues was physically hurt Guus van den Hout Catharijneconvent, Utrecht in the attacks. Many art objects were Julia Lloyd Williams National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh destroyed, but none seem to have belonged to Peter Schoon Dordrechts Museum, Dordrecht museum collections. Thea Vignau-Wilberg Staatliche Graphische Sammlungen, Nonetheless, the functioning of museums Photo Bert Nienhuis, Amsterdam. Munich 3 codart Courant 3/December 2001 Reports from the regional committees Vienna, Albertina Vienna, Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der The new Albertina (from http://www. bildenden Künste german-speaking countries, albertina.at/e/albertina/index.html, with The Gemäldegalerie der Akademie recently scandinavia and baltic states permission) refurbished the long Hansen Gallery, fea- ‘The most extensive reconstruction and expan- turing Dutch and Flemish painting. It now austria sion works in the history of the Albertina forms, together with the rooms for Hierony- Innsbruck, Tiroler Landesmuseum started in spring 1999: “Between the Burg- mus Bosch, early Italian painting and the Ferdinandeum garten front of the palace and the Palm House, classicistic room, a continuous modernized Exhibitions and exhibition catalogues a new four-floor structure of a total cubage of gallery space. The smaller Loggia, parallel to Rembrandt, Brueghel & Co. Die Niederländer- 26,000 m3, housing high-security storage the Hansen Gallery, is still being worked on sammlung im Tiroler Landesmuseum facilities, a study building and a hall for and is to be opened to the public at the end of Ferdinandeum. In 1997 the Tiroler Landes- temporary exhibitions, is being erected after November 2001. Here, further works of Dutch, museum Ferdinandeum drew the attention of plans by the architects’ duo Steinmayer & Flemish and French painters will be displayed. the public to its Dutch and Flemish holdings Mascher. The structure is being built into the With these measures the Gemäldegalerie der with this exhibition of paintings that entered old city bastion so that it won’t interfere with Akademie has reopened its complete exhibi- the museum mainly through the Tschager the original townscape.