New Junior Curator for Boijmans thanks to Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Award.

This month Marthe Kes will start work at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam as a junior curator of applied art and design. Her post was made possible by a Curators Grant from the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.

The Curators Grant that the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds is awarding this year ensures that an incumbent museum curator is given greater scope to conduct research on their museum’s collection. It also gives recent art history graduates like Marthe Kes (born in Rotterdam in 1993), the opportunity to gain experience. The Curators Grant, which the Cultuurfonds initiated in 2013, enabled Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen to employ a curator twice before – in 2014 and 2015. 

Marthe Kes, who worked at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen as a trainee curator and later as an assistant curator on the renowned Bauhaus exhibition while she was at university, returns on 1 February 2021. Until July 2021 Kes will support senior curator Mienke Simon Thomas and the completion of the Boijmans Study on the history of the applied art and design collection she is working on. She will also work on substantive projects in this field in the new depot.

Cathelijne Broers, Director of the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds: ‘I am delighted by the appointment of Marthe Kes. For the next six months she can get down to work as a junior curator and add to the results that curator Mienke Simon Thomas has achieved with great success over the last thirty years. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is receiving this grant in recognition of their relevant research into its special design collection. The award will facilitate a publication about its history and significance. I am sure that Marthe Kes will have an especially stimulating time at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and I look forward to the results of the research.’

Curator Mienke Simon Thomas: ‘Working with the latest generation of art historians is extraordinarily useful for more mature incumbent colleagues. Their contemporary view of many matters that appear to us as self-evident is refreshing, and their computer knowledge and skills have actually become indispensable. We are most grateful to the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.’

Marthe Kes read art history at Leiden University and completed a masters in heritage studies (sandwich/museum curator) at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. While a student, Kes was an intern at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and a trainee curator at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Afterwards Kes worked as a project staff member and assistant curator on various projects at Boijmans and she was exhibition registrar at the Frans Hals Museum. Kes is a member of the Dutch Design History Foundation’s editorial team and has written for a number of publications, including Nederland ⇄ bauhaus – pioniers van een nieuwe wereld (The Netherlands ⇄ Bauhaus– Pioneers of a New World).

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is an eclectic and distinctive museum in the heart of Rotterdam. The museum introduces visitors to Western art history from the Middle Ages up to the present day. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen has a world-class collection and stands for freedom of expression, respect for ideas and challenging viewpoints – taking a vibrant and imaginative approach to showing the art and design of past and present. Collecting, researching, documenting, restoring, conserving and exhibiting are harmonized. The museum thus combines knowledge and understanding and gives everyone the opportunity to roam through art history, from the Middle Ages to the present day. In 2019, the museum embarked on a much-needed renovation that is expected to take seven years. The museum continues to operate during this Transit period, and key works from the highly praised collection remain on display in schools and other art institutions in Rotterdam. Objects from the collection are also travelling to the world’s finest museums. Meanwhile, the construction of Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen is proceeding apace. The world’s first publicly accessible art depot, it will open its doors in 2021, when more than 151,000 works of art will be safely displayed and cared for.