The art collection of author, television producer and art lover Jef Rademakers (b. 1949) includes more than a hundred paintings from the Romantic Era. A total of 70 works from this collection are currently on display at the Sinebrychoff Art Museum. They open up romantic perspectives on Dutch and Flemish art of the mid-19th century. On display at the Sinebrychoff Art Museum are the central themes of the period: portraits, still lifes, genre paintings and landscapes depicting the countryside and sea as well as towns.
The artists in the exhibition were fairly well-known in their day, but with changes in the concept of art, they have faded into obscurity. The exhibition shows that they are entitled to their own chapter in the history of art. The artists were inspired especially by the 17th-century art of the Dutch Golden Age, examples of which are also on display in the Sinebrychoff Art Museum’s permanent collection.
The exhibition has been produced in collaboration with Jef Rademakers and the Embassy of the Netherlands in Finland. The exhibition has been on display at the Hermitage in St Petersburg, the Municipal Museum in The Hague, the M Museum in Leuven, B.C. Koekkoek-Haus in Cleves and at KUMU in Tallinn. From Helsinki, the exhibition will continue to the Latvian National Museum of Art in Riga and from there on to Prague.
The exhibition includes guided tours, workshops, lectures, as well as an exhibition publication in English and Russian.