Daan van Golden. The Original

The Stedelijk Museum Schiedam is celebrating the life and work of artist Daan van Golden with a major retrospective!

A chequered tea towel, a piece of wrapping paper, an image in a newspaper or a blurred photograph: for painter Daan van Golden (1936-2017), these were not meaningless images, but serious subjects for his art. With great concentration, he reproduced existing patterns or discovered beauty in the serendipitous moments he captured on camera. This makes Daan van Golden one of the most idiosyncratic artists the Netherlands has ever known.

The exhibition Daan van Golden. The Original at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam presents an overview of his extraordinary oeuvre. On display are the meditative paintings that made Van Golden world-famous, alongside the many photographs, collages and graphic works that are often inextricably linked to them. The concept of originality takes on a whole new meaning: it is no longer a matter of creating something new, but of seeing the beauty in what is already there.

Van Golden: A hero of Schiedam

The museum is celebrating the life and work of Daan van Golden as one of the highlights of the year in which the city of Schiedam is celebrating its 750th anniversary. Van Golden lived and worked in Schiedam for most of his life, and this anniversary year offers the museum the perfect opportunity to honour the artist as a ‘hero of Schiedam’. The exhibition also marks the acquisition of the 1964 work Untitled (Tokyo). This summer, the Schiedam Vlaardingen Fund purchased the painting on a long-term loan for the museum. Director Anne de Haij: ‘It is a key work in Van Golden’s oeuvre that, after being in the family for a long time, is now being preserved for the Dutch public.’ In addition to Untitled (Tokyo) from 1964, the Schiedam Vlaardingen Fund has also acquired an abstract expressionist painting from 1961 and four double prints from 2012 for the museum.

‘Being an artist is about everything you do’

Daan van Golden is beloved and renowned among art lovers and artists all over the world. But the museum believes his infectious gaze, his use of images and his open attitude to life deserve a larger and broader audience. This exhibition brings together some of his finest works. On display are several variations of the iconic blue parakeet from For H.M., the paintings of handkerchiefs in blue, yellow and red, and the photo series Insel Hombroich, in which we see Daan van Golden’s daughter Diana, aged 9, doing a cartwheel in front of a painting by Yves Klein. In addition to his many famous works, the exhibition also focuses on Daan van Golden as a person. As a Schiedammer, as a father, as a friend and as a fellow artist, Van Golden is close to many people’s hearts. Without exception, he is remembered for his engaging personality and open attitude to life. ‘Being an artist is not just about delivering works of art, it’s about everything you do, doing things with love, not making junk, being a good person,’ he said in a 1989 interview in the Dutch magazine Vrij Nederland. Personal stories and memories are therefore woven into the exhibition in various ways.

From Schiedam to Tokyo

Daan van Golden was born in 1936 in Katendrecht, Rotterdam. From 1961 he lived and worked in Schiedam, except for several extended periods when he travelled and worked in other parts of the world. After school, in the late 1950s, he painted in an abstract expressionist style, mainly in black, grey and white. The works look ‘wild’: painted with bold strokes, completely abstract – in keeping with what successful artists such as Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock were doing at the time. In 1963, he travelled to Japan. It was a trip that changed everything. Van Golden was fascinated by the country, its culture and – above all – by the concentration, attentiveness and sharpness of Japanese aesthetics. He was most inspired not by temples and famous works of art, but by the design of everyday objects, from wrapping paper to kitchen textiles. Everything in Japan seemed thoughtful and beautifully designed, made with great attention to detail and craftsmanship. He was compelled to look at his own art in a different way. Why should an artist’s wild gestures make better art than the attention and concentration required to recreate an existing motif? His time in Japan completely changed both him and his work.

Daan van Golden, Two Paintings, 1966, Museum Boijmans VanDaan van Golden, Kompositie, 1963, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (courtesy by RCE)

Reality, illusion, repetition, originality

Whether he was reproducing a handkerchief or drawing inspiration from famous works by great artists such as Pollock, Matisse or Giacometti, Van Golden’s work raises questions about reality and illusion, repetition and originality. Curator Catrien Schreuder: ‘Daan van Golden’s oeuvre is very diverse, but at the same time everything is related. A particular find, such as the pattern of small tulips on wrapping paper from a Japanese department store, returns in later works in all sorts of guises: as a painting, as part of an installation featuring that painting, in a photograph of it, or as a pattern combined with other images. Time and again, something new emerges, even though it was all already there. Just by looking at it differently. It’s very infectious.’

Daan van Golden. The Original brings together no fewer than 80 masterpieces, both from the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam’s own collection and from various other museum and private collections. Never before have so many of his works been shown together in a single exhibition.

Daan van Golden first exhibited in Schiedam in 1965 at the Honger gallery. In 1966 he held his first museum presentation at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, followed by a solo show in 1978. His work has also been exhibited at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Centraal Museum in Utrecht and the Kunstmuseum in The Hague. His work is also popular abroad, with solo exhibitions in Dijon, Brussels, Tokyo and New York, to name but a few. In 1999 he represented the Netherlands with an exhibition in the Dutch Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

Concept, composition en artist

The exhibition Daan van Golden. The Original is part of Schiedam’s 750th anniversary celebrations, marking 750 years since the city gained its official status.

The exhibition Daan van Golden. The Original was developed by the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam in close collaboration with the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

Concept: Saskia van Kampen-Prein, curator of modern and contemporary art, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, and Catrien Schreuder, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam.

Exhibition curator: Catrien Schreuder, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam

Thanks to
​Gemeente Schiedam and Schiedamviert750

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