About & the benefactors
At the heart of theartbook.nl is the private collection of Martijn te Winkel, carefully built over 30 years, with monographs, survey books and artists’ publications. It has been expanded with new acquisitions and donations that broaden the range.
Buying or receiving an art book privately usually had a reason: a specific purpose, an exhibition visit, a gift, a particular interest — something that evokes a strong memory. That is why naming the benefactors is part of carrying on the knowledge, the experience and the feeling that come with a visit to theartbook.nl.
Benefactors
- Ditty — A visual artist and friend, who let me make a first selection from her bookcase. She gave books on abstract art from her private collection, with a strong representation of the development of women working in abstraction.
- Jos van Merendonk — Offered four boxes of books for a fee I, as a specialist, considered fair. Jos sent a photo of a small stack of books from the boxes — convincing enough to travel to Amsterdam. The façade of the building housing his studio is painted in the chromium oxide green that characterises all his work. A remarkable conversation followed. The clarity of choice and visual language: incredibly strong. A beautiful studio with work made the previous week as well as work from years ago — equally clear and seemingly timeless, and so decisive for the freedom it creates for other visual art. When I got home and looked at the books, they were in remarkably immaculate condition, including a number of antiquarian books: art books Jos collected in relation to his own minimalist art. So good that Jos found a home for the books he no longer needed in his daily practice.
- Yvonne — Trained at art academy herself and gave guided tours at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Books on art history education and on artists she admired, some of which she donated to theartbook.nl.
- Marieke — Many people are looking for a new home for their art books. Besides several lovely donations, Marieke gave three fine chairs for the reading table.
- Geert and Olga — Gave two metres of books and magazines on urban landscape architecture, artificial landscape, public space and architecture that implements the imagination of art.
- Anonymous — Some 25 top-tier books on the margins of society, on the boundary between art and society, including war photography.
- L.M.B. van der Seijp, mother of two Verschuren sons — A book room with a wall of 3 by 7 metres. Every book well lived-in, also through her love for a late former antiquarian bookseller. On every shelf, a handmade cloth lay over the books to protect them from dust. A lifelong history in books: on travel, literature, teaching material from her working life as a teacher, artist friends and The Hague. Books with a personal history — inscriptions, gifts on the occasion of, exhibition visits, birthday presents — with an enormous love of art. This is how books should be treated: lovingly and dearly.
- Mirian Zimmerman — Three metres of art books, educational books for children and self-study books on the most diverse techniques.