Maarten van Heemskerck (1498-1574), Self-Portrait with the Colosseum, Rome, 1533 © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

HAARLEM.- The first ever Maarten van Heemskerck (Heemskerk, 1498 - Haarlem, 1574) retrospective will be held at the Frans Hals Museum, Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar and Teylers Museum from 28 September 2024 to 19 January 2025. 450 years after the artist’s death, masterpieces by Heemskerck will travel to the Netherlands from 12 different countries. Institutions including The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid), The National Gallery (London), the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam), the National Museum in Warsaw and the Kupferstichkabinett (Berlin) will lend important pieces, many of which have never before been exhibited in the Netherlands. The exhibition will highlight the innovative, expressive and theatrical nature of the work of this Dutch Renaissance artist.

Work by Heemskerck is found all round the world at many important museums and in private collections. Only a small proportion of his work is in the Netherlands. With 50 paintings, 16 drawings and 68 prints by Heemskerck, the museums will offer a representative impression of Heemskerck’s large body of work, in this exhibition at three locations. No fewer than half the paintings attributed to Heemskerck will be temporarily brought together in the Netherlands. The selected works are those held to be of the highest quality, and others that have only recently been attributed to Heemskerck. Some come from private collections, so are normally not easily accessible to the general public.

Three distinct periods
Each museum will showcase a distinct period from the life of this influential and successful 16th-century artist. The Frans Hals Museum, focusing on the ‘Bold Innovator’, will present Heemskerck’s earliest known work – from expressive religious paintings to lifelike portraits of the emerging bourgeoisie, complete with wrinkles – combined with that of contemporaries like Jan van Scorel and Jan Gossart. Heemskerck was bold in terms of his innovative, realistic style of painting. In ‘To Rome’, Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar will present an account of Heemskerck’s trip to Italy and show how it resulted in work that was audacious and – at that time – surprising and innovative. He arrived in Rome just as the first statues from antiquity were being excavated. While there, Heemskerck also encountered the work of Michelangelo, Raphael and their contemporaries. This all made a huge impression on him, and his style became even more expressive and dynamic, making him the most important representative of the Italian Renaissance in the northern Netherlands. In ‘Pioneer on Paper’, Teylers Museum will present Heemskerck as an innovator in Dutch printing. With over 60 prints, the museum will showcase the artist as a successful businessman. His prints were sold far and wide and became a source of inspiration for Rembrandt and other artists.

Maarten van Heemskerck (1498-1574), St Luke Painting the Virgin, 1532 © Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem.

Many highlights

Besides the absolute masterpiece Saint Luke Painting the Madonna of 1532 from its own collection, which is currently undergoing a spectacular metamorphosis and will be presented in a completely restored state, the Frans Hals Museum will also be showing several outstanding early portraits. Portrait of a Woman Spinning (circa 1528) from Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid), which has never before been shown in the Netherlands, will be one of the highlights. In this painting, Heemskerck depicts a woman working at a spinning wheel indoors, with a basket containing scissors and yarn hanging behind her on the wall. At the time, a portrait in such a realistic domestic setting was something entirely new. One of the highlights in Alkmaar will be Heemskerck’s Rome drawings from the Kupferstichkabinett (Berlin). These personal testimonies to Heemskerck’s inspiring trip are normally bound in an album and are seldom exhibited because they are so fragile. In addition, Heemskerck’s impressive Ecce Homo or Drenckwaert Triptych altarpiece (1544) from the National Museum in Warsaw will be on display. This rare, fully intact altarpiece by the master – never before shown in the Netherlands – is actually still in its original frame. With important loans from the Noord-Holland Provincial Archives and the Rijksmuseum, Teylers Museum will show a selection of the best contemporary prints of Heemskerck’s work, alongside two etchings by Rembrandt from its own collection.

Maerten van Heemskerck, Portrait of a Lady spinning, ca. 1531 Oil on panel. 105 x 86 cm, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Inv. no. 183 (1969.14) © Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Maarten van Heemskerck (1498-1574), Belvedere Torso, 1532-36 © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett; Photo: Dietmar Katz.

Maerten van Heemskerck, The Ecce Homo Altarpiece, 1544. Oil on panel, 74 1/4 x 102 3/8 x 5 3/16 in. (open, framed) © Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie

Extensive research

Prior to the exhibition Professor Emeritus Ilja Veldman, who is also the guest curator at all three museums, has performed extensive research. Her work has produced some important new insights, including changes to attributions, identifications of portrait subjects, and also new information on Heemskerck’s network and process.

Publication

A book on the life and work of Maarten van Heemskerck written by Professor Emeritus Ilja Veldman, with additional contributions on Heemskerck’s materials and techniques by Jessica Roeders and Mireille te Marvelde (conservators at the Frans Hals Museum), will be published to accompany the exhibition. The lavishly illustrated book – the first to consider Heemskerck’s body of work in its entirety – will be published in both English and Dutch by WBOOKS, 304 pages, 23 x 27 cm, paperback with cover flaps, price € 39.95.

Philips Galle (1537-1612), after Maarten van Heemskerck (1498-1574), Colosseum in Rome, 1572 © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam