With Anita Hopmans
RESCHEDULED: Tuesday, September 23, 2025 at 12 pm ET (18h CEST)
(Left) Van Dongens atelier, Villa Said, 29, Paris, ca. 1920; unknown photographer. Photo from Private Archives. (Right) Van Dongen in his atelier, rue Saulnier 6, Paris, c. 1910-1911. Unknown photographer; photo from Archives Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris
The Dutch-French artist Kees van Dongen (1877-1968) moved from the Netherlands to Paris when he was twenty and quickly joined the modernist vanguard alongside Picasso and Matisse. At the height of his fame, he occupied a luxury, five-floor mansion in Paris where he had a vast studio space, at no. 5 rue Juliette-Lamber. The path of Van Dongen’s exceptional career is reflected in his succession of studios, from the hilltop of Montmartre to his space in the famous Bateau-Lavoir, from the large apartment-studio at 6 rue Saulnier (just around the corner from the Folies-Bergères music hall) to the newer accommodations proximate the Bois de Boulogne at 29 Villa Saïd. Some of his old studios are still intact. The disparate dimensions and surroundings, as well as the nature of the works we see in studio shots, illustrate Van Dongen’s early choices. By way of these spaces, lead scholar of the Kees van Dongen Catalogue Raisonné project Anita Hopmans will introduce us to the artist’s career within the Parisian Avant-garde.
Anita Hopmans was a Head of Collections & Research, in addition to other positions, at the RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History (2003-2023) and, prior to this, was a researcher at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. She is currently completing her PhD at the University of Amsterdam as an external PhD candidate on “Kees van Dongen and the Avant-Garde: About Chances, Choices & the Canon, 1895-1914/1920” and is a recent recipient of a research grant from the Netherlands Institute for Conservation, Art and Science for her material-technical research on a selection of Van Dongen paintings in Dutch museums and private collections. She is also the leading scholar of the Kees van Dongen Digital Catalogue Raisonné Project (Wildenstein Plattner Institute).
She has served as a guest curator on many exhibitions, including the first exhibition dedicated to Kees van Dongen’s works on paper: The Van Dongen nobody knows. Early and fauvist drawings 1895-1912 (Rotterdam, Paris and Lyons, 1996-1997). She also curated and co-curated several exhibitions on Van Dongen’s painted works: Kees van Dongen. The Road to Success (Museum Singer Laren, 2023), Van Dongen & le Bateau-Lavoir (Musée de Montmartre, 2018), Passions Fauves. Henri Matisse and Fauvism, (The Albertina Museum Vienna, 2013-2014), and All eyes on Kees van Dongen / Van Dongen. Fauve, anarchiste et mondain (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen / Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, 2010-2011).