Gen F – 75 years of figurative art

Several generations of artists will be featured in the exhibition. In a special studio in the Singel Hall, some of the artists will also be working live during the exhibition. Never before has such an extensive retrospective of the figurative art collection been shown in the Drents Museum. 

The Drents Museum was one of the first museums in the Netherlands to start collecting modern figurative art. This is art that is based on the observation of visible reality, also known as ‘realism’. Leading within the collection is the work of the northern figurative artists, including Matthijs Röling (1943-2024), Wout Muller (1946-2000), Henk Helmantel (1945) and Clary Mastenbroek (1947). From the late 1960s, they opposed the prevailing idea that only abstract work is ‘good art’. In the exhibition Gen F, the art of the northern figurative artists comes together with that of realistic artists from all over the Netherlands, such as Kik Zeiler (1948), Charlotte Schleiffert (1967), Ina van Zyl (1971) and Dion Rosina (1991).  

The common thread in the exhibition consists of the different generations of artists. Gen F starts with the precursors of figurative art, who were born before 1940. The exhibition then continues up to the current generation. In Gen F, the museum shows the connections between these generations, making it easy to follow the development from 1950 to the present.

The exhibition will be accompanied by the publication Gen F – 75 years of figurative art. The book is being produced in collaboration with Uitgeverij Waanders and will be available in the Museum Shop or via dutchmuseumgiftshop.nl. The long-awaited reference work on Matthijs Röling, which ties in with this exhibition, will also be published at the end of March.