It is only June, but a lot has been happening this summer, and I am writing on behalf of the Board of the American Friends of the Mauritshuis (AFMh) to keep you informed of a few important changes.
First, there are a couple of moves within the Board that have been in the works for some time. After serving as President for the past four years, Mona Sadler is stepping down. She has achieved a great deal and we are deeply grateful to her for her graceful leadership. Mona will remain a very active member of our Board. I am sure that you will all wish to join me in thanking her for her outstanding service to our organization.
We are all delighted that Stein Berre has offered to take over as President as of June 13th. Stein is a Senior Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and is a collector of paintings and drawings of the Dutch Golden Age. He has held Board memberships at the Royal Oak Foundation and as a Trustee for the Murray Hill Historic District in NYC as well as at the AFMh.
We are also very pleased to announce that Alison Dichter will be joining us as the AFMh Administrative Director. Alison brings energy and entrepreneurship to this new role. In addition to running her own casting agency in New York City, Alison also helps support the Boards of the American Friends of the Louvre and the Royal Oak Foundation on events, membership and development. I hope you’ll all have a chance to meet her at a future event.
Our mailing address is changing, so please update your address books. Going forward, please send all correspondence to:
American Friends of the Mauritshuis
114 East 36th Street
3rd Floor
New York, NY 10016
For those of you we may have missed with the Summer appeal email, we encourage you to donate to help secure funding for an exciting new exhibition about conservation at the Mauritshuis, which will feature projects taken on by AFMh Interns. We also hope that you will help ensure the future of our AFMh-Fulbright Internship. If you plan to send a check, please use the new address. If you have already sent a donation to the old address, don’t worry, it will still get to us.
Lastly, we are working on an exciting Fall event for the AFMh in New York City. Please keep your calendars free on the evening of October 30th. I look forward to seeing you there!
On behalf of the Board of Directors of the American Friends of the Mauritshuis, I am delighted to share some news about recent developments at the museum and some exciting upcoming projects. At the same time, we hope that you will take a moment to renew your membership in the American Friends of the Mauritshuis and help spread the word about our mission and impact!
The Mauritshuis had a busy and productive 2018, punctuated by special events that captured the public imagination. The museum presented several innovative projects, from the conservation of the Girl with a Pearl Earring, accomplished in full public view, to the launch of “Meet Vermeer,” an Augmented Reality app created in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture and twenty-six other collections. It was also an exceptional year for acquisitions, with seven additions to the collection. And the Mauritshuis presented three exhibitions in 2018, including the critically acclaimed Jan Steen’s Histories, to which the American Friends made a significant contribution. We are off to another strong in 2019 – with attendance up significantly over last year, partly thanks to a special Rembrandt exhibition. I hope you’ve been able to follow along in the Mauritshuis in Focus. By the way, translations in the magazine are also made possible by our American Friends.
This year the American Friends also provided essential support for the Fulbright-American Friends of the Mauritshuis Grant. Kathryn (Kat) Harada is thrilled to be the 2018-2019 American Friends of the Mauritshuis/Fulbright Fellow in Paintings Conservation at the Mauritshuis. Kat graduated from Smith College in 2008 with a BA in Art History and Italian and earned an M.A. and a Certificate of Advanced Study in Art Conservation from SUNY Buffalo State College in 2017. She worked as a pre-program conservation intern at Shangri La, Doris Duke’s former residence in Honolulu before pursuing her studies in Buffalo. During her graduate training, she focused on the research and treatment of Old Master to 19th century painting and held internships at the Williamstown Art Conservation Center, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the National Gallery of Art. Kat came to The Hague from Los Angeles, where she was completing a post graduate internship year at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Her main project at the Mauritshuis is the restoration and research of two pendant portraits by Nicolaes Maes, which will be exhibited in the permanent collection at the same time as the museum presents a Maes exhibition this Fall. The American Friends play a vital role in this Fulbright fellowship grant, enabling the next generation of conservators to develop in their profession.
Cornelis de Heem, Fruit Still Life, c. 1670 (inv. nr. 50, detail)
We are now seeking support for a very special exhibition, which will bring our organizations even closer together. The museum plans to organize a show during the summer of 2020 about conservation: why, how and when are paintings treated? The conservation studio, under the eaves of the Mauritshuis, is not open to the public, but this exhibition will let visitors in on the “secret,” and elucidate the often dramatic transformation that the paintings undergo during treatment. One of the paintings to go on display is a still life by Cornelis de Heem, which was treated by the first Fulbright-American Friends of the Mauritshuis Fellow, Ellen Nigro. Another story in the show is about the very special frame, made possible by the American Friends, for Rembrandt’s Susanna. Exhibitions such as this, even ones that draw largely on the museum’s own collection, are expensive to organize, especially to the very high standard that the Mauritshuis has set. Our target is to raise $25,000, which will go a long way to enabling us to realize this special project. We understand that you must have many interests and obligations, but hope that you will consider offering additional support to make possible this “behind-the-scenes” view of the art of conservation.
Rembrandt van Rijn, Susanna, 1636 (inv. nr. 147, detail)
In the meantime, we hope that we can count on you to renew your membership with the American Friends of the Mauritshuis. All contributions are fully tax deductible, in keeping with the IRS guidelines for accredited 501(c)(3) organizations in the United States.
Please note our address has changed to: 1E 53rd Street, 8th floor, New York, NY 10022.
On behalf of the members of the Board of the American Friends of the Mauritshuis, thank you again for your steadfast partnership as we continue to provide support for and create even greater awareness of the Mauritshuis in the United States. I think we all agree that it is a very special museum and one that not only deserves to be better known, but also one that is more than worthy of our ongoing support.
