Rembrandt in the USA:

Events and exhibitions in 2019

_T_he year 2019 marks the 350th anniversary of Dutch master painter Rembrandt van Rijn. Cultural institutions in The Netherlands and around the world will celebrate Rembrandt’s life and heritage with numerous events and exhibitions. Read more about exhibitions in The Netherlands here and read an overview of events and exhibitions in the US below.

Ackland Art Museum Displays Rembrandt Drawings

October 4, 2019 – October 20, 2019
Ackland Art Museum (Chapel Hill, NC)

To celebrate the 350th anniversary of the artist’s death in 1669, the Ackland Art Museum will join other museums around the world commemorating Rembrandt by mounting a special presentation of his drawings from the Peck Collection.

Rembrandt (1606-1669), Studies of a woman and two children, ca 1640 Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

An Afternoon with Rembrandt at the Legion of Honor Museum

October 5, 2019
Legion of Honor Museum (San Francisco, CA)

Join the Legion of Honor on October 5th for a museum-wide celebration of one of the most iconic artists of the Dutch Golden Age. This Free Saturday event commemorates the cultural legacy of Rembrandt van Rijn on the 350th Anniversary of his death with an engaging program of lectures, activities, and music. Throughout the day, enjoy focused Docent Tours on Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age, a Rembrandt pop quiz giveaway, and the Legion’s Joris de Caulerij in Gallery 14. More info.

Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt

October 20, 2019 – January 12, 2020
Saint Louis Art Museum (Saint Louis, MI)

The Dutch paintings collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has long been renowned for its extraordinarily high quality of works by major artists. St. Louisans will have the opportunity to enjoy these masterworks at “Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt.” The exhibition highlights works by Rembrandt van Rijn and other celebrated 17th-century Dutch painters, including landscapes, genre scenes, portraits, still lifes and history paintings. More info.

“Rubens, Rembrandt, and Drawing in the Golden Age” at Art Institute of Chicago

September 28, 2019 – January 5, 2020
The Art Insitute of Chicago

The exhibition will feature works by famous Dutch artists like Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, Hendrick Goltzius, Gerrit von Honthorst, Jacques de Gheyn II, and many others. It explores the development of drawing in the Netherlands in the 17th century and shows the many roles of drawing in artistic training, its preparatory function for works in other media, and its eventual emergence as a medium in its own right. Produced in a broad range of media, including chalk, ink, and watercolor, the drawings in this exhibition are captivating examples of artistic skill and imagination. The exhibition reveals how drawings came to be the celebrated works of art we know them to be today.

Rembrandt prints in “Through a Glass, Darkly: Allegory and Faith in Netherlandish Prints from Lucas van Leyden to Rembrandt”

August 31, 2019 – December 1, 2019
Michael C. Carlos Museum (Atlanta, GA)

An exhibition of 90 prints from artists such as Lucas van Leyden, Hendrick Goltzius, Jan Sadeler, and Rembrandt will be on view in the exhibition at the Michael C. Carlos Museum. From 1500-1700, printmakers in the Low Countries were, as a group, the most skilled and prolific in all of Europe, and prints, often combined with text, played an important role in Netherlandish religious culture during this period. Printmakers utilized allegory in their work to address the most fundamental issues binding the human and the divine: love, virtue, vice, sin, death, and salvation.

Rembrandt to Picasso: Five Centuries of European Works on Paper

June 21, 2019 – October 13, 2019
Brooklyn Museum (New York City)

Showcasing the breadth of the Brooklyn Museum’s exceptional works on paper collection, Rembrandt to Picasso: Five Centuries of European Works on Paper highlights more than one hundred European prints and drawings, pairing masterworks by renowned artists such as William Blake, Albrecht Dürer, Francisco Goya, and Vincent van Gogh with lesser known, rarely seen drawings, prints, and watercolors.

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (Dutch, 1606-1669). Rembrandt’s Mother, ca. 1631. Etching on laid paper, 5 5/8 x 5 1/16 in. (14.3 x 12.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Samuel P. Avery, 21.238 (Photo: , 21.238_PS9.jpg)

In Praise of Painting:
Dutch Masterpieces at The Met

October 16, 2018 – October 1, 2020
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY)

Dutch paintings of the 17th century—the Golden Age of Rembrandt, Hals, and Vermeer—have been a highlight of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection since the Museum’s founding purchase in 1871. Opening October 16, the exhibition In Praise of Painting: Dutch Masterpieces at The Met will bring together some of the Museum’s greatest paintings to present this remarkable chapter of art history in a new light. More info.

Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn) (Dutch, Leiden 1606–1669 Amsterdam)
Self-Portrait, 1660
Oil on canvas; 31 5/8 x 26 1/2 in. (80.3 x 67.3 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913 (14.40.618)

Past events and exhibitions

Rembrandt Etchings:
States, Fakes and Restrikes

January 18, 2019 — March 1, 2019
Stetson University (DeLand, FL)

Dutch artist Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, known collectively as Rembrandt, is one of the most influential printmakers in art history. He created copper plate etchings that featured a wide range of subjects — from self-portraits to studies of street life. His etched prints showcase comedic expression and sober social commentary that have inspired innumerable printmakers for centuries. Stetson University’s Homer and Dolly Hand Art Center will display more than 40 of the master artist’s etchings. More info.

Lectures by art historian Eric Jan Sluijter

February 22, March 1, and March 8, 2019
Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA)

In collaboration with the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard, the Harvard Art Museums present Art and Competition in the Dutch Golden Age, a three-part lecture series delivered by Eric Jan Sluijter, professor emeritus at the University of Amsterdam and the 2019 Erasmus Lecturer at Harvard University. More info.

Rembrandt van Rijn, ‘Self Portrait in Velvet Cap and Plume’ (c. 1638)

Rembrandt Portraits

March 3, 2019 – June 9, 2019
Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL)

A portrait is typically understood to be a faithful reproduction of a person’s likeness. Rembrandt complicated the genre, constructing identities through props, lighting, and ambiguous settings—leaving us to ask, “What is a portrait?” This spring, two portraits by Rembrandt van Rijn are visiting the Art Institute from the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California. The paintings, Portrait of a Boy and Self-Portrait, join the Art Institute’s own Old Man with a Gold Chain and Young Woman at an Open Half-Door for a look at Rembrandt’s approach to portraiture—one that is decidedly more complex than it may first appear. More info.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, ‘Old Man with a Gold Chain’ (1626-1636), © Mr. and Mrs. W. W. Kimball Collection

Rembrandt and the Jewish Experience:
The Berger Print Collection

March 15, 2019 – June 30, 2019
Telfair Museums (Savannah, GA)

This exhibition showcases 21 etchings with Judaic subjects by Rembrandt and one drawing by Rembrandt’s teacher Pieter Lastman (Dutch, 1583–1633). These works highlight the artist’s nuanced relationship with Amsterdam’s citizens of the Jewish faith, and the keen insights Rembrandt brought to interpretations of Old Testament Bible stories. More info.

Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn). Dutch, 1606–1669. Self Portrait Etching at a Window, 1648. Etching, drypoint, and burin; fourth of nine states. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Sylmaris Collection, Gift of George Coe Graves, 1920

Life in the Age of Rembrandt

February 1, 2019 – June 16, 2019
Columbus Museum of Art (Columbus, OH)

Spanning over three centuries, Life in the Age of Rembrandt features 17th-century art from the Golden Age of Dutch painting, and concludes with works of The Hague School of the late 19th century. This exclusive exhibition, shown only in Columbus, Ohio, showcases some 90 works, including 40 masterworks, many paired with a related object such as a print, a coin, Delftware, or silver. All of the works in the exhibition are on loan to from Dordrecht Museum, The Netherlands.

Rembrandt van Rijn, ‘Adoration of the Shepherds,’ 1654, Etching

Celebrating Rembrandt

A talk and reception at the Getty Center, Los Angeles
Wednesday, July 24, 2019 at 7:00 p.m.
Harold M. Williams Auditorium

The enduring power of Rembrandt’s art resonates especially strongly in Southern California. Home to the third-largest collection of Rembrandt’s paintings in the United States—as well as substantial holdings of drawings and prints—the region’s rich collection of the Dutch master’s paintings are explored in detail in the website Rembrandt in Southern California, newly relaunched to mark the occasion of the 350th anniversary of his death in 1669.

Join curators from institutions across Los Angeles as they discuss Rembrandt’s versatility and impact in three different media:

Getty curator Stephanie Schrader offers insight into Rembrandt’s drawings and his keen interest in the cosmopolitan world around him: from the local Dutch landscape to the splendid clothing, jewelry, and weapons of the Mughal emperors; Getty curator Anne Woollett probes the secrets and celebrity of the painting Rembrandt Laughing, the most recent addition to the regional collection; and Cynthia Burlingham, deputy director of curatorial affairs at the Hammer Museum, together with Jacob Samuel, contemporary master etcher and UCLA faculty, deliberate Rembrandt as an inspirational model for today’s printmakers.

Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints: Rembrandt

April 30, 2019 – July 28, 2019
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)

The Met’s Department of Drawings & Prints’ quarterly rotation of works will commemorate the 350th anniversary of the death of the great Dutch draftsman, painter, and printmaker Rembrandt van Rijn. On display will be a selection of drawings and prints by the artist, from both the Department of Drawings and Prints and the Robert Lehman Collection, as well as an assortment of ephemeral material related to the etching revival and the cult of Rembrandt in the nineteenth century.

Norton Museum of Art Exhibits Rembrandt, Rubens & Van Ostade

July 5, 2019 – September 17, 2019
Norton Museum of Art (Palm Beach, FL)

The Norton Museum of Art opened its ‘Small Worlds: Five Centuries of European Prints and Drawings from the Collection’ exhibition. Titled after Wassily Kandinsky’s 1922 print series Small Worlds, this exhibition comprises about 40 European drawings and prints made over the course of five centuries by artists ranging from Dürer to Picasso and including Dutch and Flemish artists such as Rembrandt, Rubens, and Van Ostade.

REMBRANDT VAN RIJN, Dutch, 1606–1669 The Death of the Virgin, 1639 Etching and drypoint, Second state (of Usticke’s five) 16 x 12 3/8 in. (40.6 x 31.4 cm) Purchase, R.H. Norton Trust, 96.23