The Frans Hals Museum, Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar and Teylers Museum are organizing the first major retrospective exhibition on Maarten van Heemskerck. With 50 paintings, 16 drawings and 68 prints by Heemskerck, the museums offer a representative impression of  Van Heemskerck’s large body of work, in this exhibition at three locations. No fewer than half the paintings attributed to the artist will be brought together in the Netherlands.

Maarten van Heemskerck at the Frans Hals Museum

Maarten van Heemskerck was one of the most successful, innovative artists of the Northern Netherlands in the sixteenth century. In his lifetime, he saw the advent of Protestantism, new technology and the rise of the Dutch Republic. The changes that happened around him are reflected in his work: before it had been the Church, now burghers also patronized the arts, the impact of the Italian Renaissance reverberated in Holland and artists longed to see the art of Antiquity and their famous Italian contemporaries with their own eyes, while the iconoclastic cleansing of the churches brought a violent end to church art in the Northern Netherlands.

In the Frans Hals Museum, the focus is on Maarten van Heemskerck’s early career. A comparison of his work with that of teachers and contemporaries such as Jan Gossaert and Jan van Scorel reveals how the up-and-coming, talented Van Heemskerck adopted and excelled in a remarkable new way of painting. This distinctly realistic style is clearly evident in the timeless portraits he painted for his increasingly successful burgher patrons. He depicted them with lifelike accuracy, down to the wrinkles and facial blemishes. Our exhibition concludes with his St Luke Painting the Virgin, the last work Van Heemskerck painted before leaving for Rome. It was one of the works Haarlem’s city council managed to save from the iconoclastic mob in 1566. A testimony to the high esteem in which Van Heemskerck was already held. St Luke Painting the Virgin has been restored specially for this exhibition and the spectacular result has revealed new insights into the way Van Heemskerck worked.

This year is the 450th anniversary of Maarten van Heemskerck’s death, then a wealthy, prominent burgher of Haarlem where he had settled after returning from Rome.

Research and publication

Prior to the exhibition Professor Emeritus Ilja Veldman, guest curator at all three museums, has performed extensive research. Her work has produced some important new insights, including changes to attributions, identifications of portrait subjects, and also new information on Heemskerck’s network and process.

A book on the life and work of Maarten van Heemskerck written by Ilja Veldman, with additional contributions on Heemskerck’s materials and techniques by Jessica Roeders and Mireille te Marvelde (conservators at the Frans Hals Museum), will be published to accompany the exhibition.

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