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Evert Thie­len – De Luiken Open

15 September 2024 up to and including 23 February 2025

A must-see!

This autumn, the Venlo museum van Bommel van Dam presents an anniversary exhibition of the Venlo-born, realistic painter Evert Thielen (1954). The museum-filling exhibition comprises the majority of his monumental-sized polyptychs. For the past few years, Thielen has been working intensively on one of the polyptychs. Now that is nearing completion, he will be exhibiting it for the first time in this form. The exhibition also contains many new and previously unexhibited paintings. A must-see!

15 September 2024 up to and including 23 February 2025

During Evert Thielen - De Luiken Open, you need a ticket with a time slot to visit the exhibition. The chosen time block counts as your entry time. You can then make your visit (within opening hours) as long as you like. With time slots we can distribute visitors over the day and make sure it doesn't get too crowded.

Order tickets

Keulsepoort 1
5911 BX Venlo

A sneak peek

About the work

The work of the now 70-year-old Thielen, created with self-made oil paint and tempera and related to the art of painting from previous centuries, is characterised by a strong symbolic load. What invariably stands out is a layered reality full of double meanings and subtle art historical references, designed in fantastical compositions and surreal arrangements. The craftsmanship and the connection between various time periods are notable in this hyper-realistic art.

About the exhibition

With Evert Thielen - De Luiken Open ('Evert Thielen - Opening the Shutters’) museum van Bommel van Dam has chosen a new approach. This exhibition is the first that studies Thielen’s work thematically and places it in an art historical framework. At first glance, the title refers to Thielen’s famous polyptychs, compiled of several panels painted on both sides. These panels will be opened and closed every day, so that all representations can be seen. There is also attention for the complex and special mechanics designed for these giants.

At the same time, the title says something else. Metaphorically, it refers to the wish to ‘open’ Thielen’s oeuvre, by dissecting and clarifying universal themes such as desire and infinity. Because what make his work so extremely appealing? His hyper-realistic style? The relationship with the old masters? Or does it hold such a great appeal because it offers such a contemporary perspective? What is the secret of the simple and personal or otherwise complex representations by Thielen? These and other research questions are central to the exhibition and extensive educational and public programme.

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About the artist

Evert Thielen (Venlo, 16 April 1954) lives in Bruges (Belgium). He studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague for several years. He also studied the painting technique of Jan van Eyck with a group of scientists at the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage in Brussels for a period of six years. Exhibitions in the Cobra Museum (2002), Het Noordbrabants Museum (2005) and Museum De Fundatie (2011) and the double exhibition of the Limburgs Museum in collaboration with museum van Bommel van Dam (2019), undergoing renovations at the time, attracted an overwhelming number of visitors. Simultaneously with the exhibition this autumn, WBOOKS publishers is releasing the book Evert Thielen. Wording, wending, werkelijkheid. (Evert Thielen. Emergence, turning, reality.)

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Also worth a visit!

When the doors of museum van Bommel van Dam close in the evening, over 50 artists light up Venlo – literally! VenloVerlicht is a unique open-air exhibition running concurrently with the Evert Thielen exhibition, located in Venlo’s historic city centre, the picturesque Maas village of Arcen and the monastic village of Steyl. Artists display their works in special light installations, inspired by the theme of ‘light’. A dozen works of art are from the museum's collection. Want to discover even more hidden gems? Take a look at Visit Venlo and experience an enchanting autumn in Venlo!

Combine your visit with the exhibition at our neighbours

Discover masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum in the Limburgs Museum. With works by well-known painters such as Jan Steen, Gerard Dou and Jozef Israëls, the Blazing Fires exhibition delves into the creative and destructive power of fire through the ages. Blazing Fires shows that fire is still a primal force, no matter how well we learnt to use it. The 30 masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum highlight the role of fire in history, but in Limburg fire played a particularly significant role – from the first flint mines and the sieges that shaped our province to gathering around the fireplace at home. Book a combined ticket online that lets you visit both museums on the same day at an attractive price!

The exhibition has been made possible with support from:

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