made in holland

There is not an Art Brut collection in the world that would turn down the opportunity to acquire the work of Willem Van Genk, yet his creations remain an inaccessible dream for most. Although his work is rare - most of it remains in the hands of the Van Genk Foundation - its aura is such that it has overshadowed a number of other remarkable Dutch Art Brut creators.

The present exhibition turns the spotlight on a number of unjustly neglected artists, showing works by Rieka Bettink, Siebe Wiemer Glastra, Ylonka Jaspers, Ron Oosterbroek, Evert Panis, Han Ploos van Amstel, Micha Stanojevic, and Roy Wenzel, on display together for the first time.

The exhibition would nonetheless have been frustratingly incomplete had it not featured one outstanding work by the much-missed, towering figure of Van Genk himself, the self-styled “idiotic Dutch painter” who once described himself as, “Rather a free thinker, of course […] Visiatry, that’s our path.”