Ruben Suykerbuyk will be the new curator of Old Masters at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. Suykerbuyk succeeds Friso Lammertse, who moved to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam last year.
From April 2021, the curators department of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen will be enriched with the arrival of former art curator Ruben Suykerbuyk (Antwerp, 1989). The Belgian art historian and current postdoctoral researcher at the University of Ghent has ancient art from the Netherlands (fifteenth – seventeenth century) as an area of expertise and therefore knows the Boijmans collection well. At the Rotterdam museum and depot, the new curator will be involved in research and care of the collection of old masters, with works by Van Eyck, Bosch, Bruegel and Titian, to Rembrandt and beyond. Predecessor Friso Lammertse said goodbye to Rotterdam in March 2020 after 28 years.
Ruben Suykerbuyk: “I have the enthusiastic ambition to share my art-historical knowledge and passion with every museum visitor by combining varied public communication with solid scientific research. I look forward to the opening of the depot next year, and I am honored to be able to help shape the new Boijmans. ” Sjarel Ex and Ina Klaassen, Boijmans directors: “We are very pleased to add this passionate curator to our team. We look forward to his great exhibitions, research and love for the old art collection.”
Art scientist
Suykerbuyk, born in Antwerp and raised in Essen, holds a doctorate in art sciences and history. He gained work experience in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels. Suykerbuyk has received several awards and stipends, including the Rogier van der Weyden Prize (2012), the Dr. Alfred & Isabel Bader Prize (2013), the James Loeb Fellowship at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich (2018) and a mandate from the Special Research Fund of Ghent University (2018-2021). He co-edited the book Art after Iconoclasm. Painting in the Netherlands (1566-1585), Turnhout (Brepols) 2012, and recently published the monograph The matter of piety. Zoutleeuw’s church of Saint Leonard and religious material culture in the Low Countries (c. 1450-1620), Leiden & Boston (Brill) 2020. Suykerbuyk is also editor of the art historical journal Simiolus, and has published numerous scientific articles.
