CURRENT EXHIBITION
Aat Veldhoen – The Art of Life

3D Tour available here.

From December 2019 – June 2020, Museum Kranenburgh in Bergen hosted our exhibition Aat Veldhoen – The Art of Life. It included etchings, paintings, sculptures and Polaroids by Aat Veldhoen, as well as his notebooks and work by artists who surrounded him.

Aat Veldhoen (1934 – 2018) lived for and surrounded himself with his art. He worked in his teeming house and studio on Amsterdam’s Wittenburgergracht. The creative urge that underscored his versatile oeuvre, including drawings, etchings, paintings, photos, ceramics and sculptures, remained unwavering to the end. 

After studying drawing, Veldhoen set about documenting desire, love, sex, illness, old age and death, all with uncompromising zeal and compassion.

Aat Veldhoen (1934 – 2018), Self-portrait with handkerchief on head, 1963, lithograph, Rembrandt House Museum, Amsterdam

This exhibition includes work Veldhoen made after suffering a partial paralysis at the age of 69, as well as Polaroids from the Rijksmuseum collection which have never been shown before.

Aat Veldhoen (1934 – 2018) – Kabul Veldhoen with children, ca.1972, Rijksmuseum collection

Veldhoen’s exceptional and enduring curiosity for everything human resulted in an intimate, lifelong study of those around him. We see this in Veldhoen’s countless portraits of himself and his family, friends and artists. 

The works in Aat Veldhoen – The Art of Life show remarkable connections with the work of those he knew and encountered. His life and art were inextricably intertwined. The result is a personal and tender view of human existence. Since Veldhoen often portrayed himself, the viewer is no longer the only voyeur. 

Aat Veldhoen – The Art of Life
1.12.2019 – 13.4.2020
Dutch National Portrait Gallery @ Museum Kranenburgh
Hoflaan 26, 1861 CR Bergen

©Aat Veldhoen, Aat, Kabul & daughters (detail), Polaroid, ca. 1971. Coll. Rijksmuseum