At the Terra Foundation Paris Center & Library:

“Holland-America: A Transatlantic Dialogue, from 1609 to Today”


Robe hommage à Piet Mondrian, collection haute couture automne-hiver 1965 © Fondation Pierre Bergé—Yves Saint Laurent, Paris/Alexandre Guirkinger

From beaver pelts shipped from the Hudson River Valley to Holland in the early 1600s to Old Master paintings snapped up by “Robber Barons” on grand tours of Europe in the late 1800s, up to the Manhattan streets painted by Piet Mondrian during World War II and theorized by Rem Koolhaas in the 1970s, the Netherlands and the Americas share a long, rich, and complex history of trade in art, material culture, and images.

To celebrate its recent move next to the Fondation Custodia, an institution dedicated for over a century to Dutch and Flemish paintings and works on paper, the Terra Foundation for American Art Paris Center & Library is hosting an exceptional series of dialogues focused on cultural exchange between Holland and America. Running from February to April 2016, the dialogues will bring together international scholars and curators to evoke four particular moments in this shared cultural history:

“In Search of Utopia: The New World in the European Imaginary,” February 18, 6:00 p.m.

  • Jason LaFountain, Lecturer, Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
  • Jan Van der Stock, Professor in Art History, KU Leuven and Head of Illuminare, Centre for the Study of Medieval Art, KU Leuven

“‘Delirious New Amsterdam’: Art, Material Culture, and Circulation in New York and the Colonial Atlantic World,” March 17, 6:00 p.m.

  • Christopher Heuer, Associate Director, Research and Academic Program, The Clark Art Institute
  • Sarah Monks, Lecturer in European Art History, School of Art, Media and American Studies, University of East Anglia

“‘Holland Mania’: American Taste, Collecting, and Travel in the Gilded Age,” April 21, 6:00 p.m.

  • Chris Stolwijk, Director, Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (Netherlandish Institute for Art History), The Hague
  • Annette Stott, Professor of Art History, School of Art and Art History, University of Denver

“Mondriaan into Mondrian: Paris to New York,” April 27, 6:00 p.m.

  • Hans Janssen, Curator of Modern Art, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag
  • Nancy J. Troy, Victoria and Roger Sant Professor in Art, Department of Art & Art History, Stanford University

For more information about each dialogue, please click on the event titles above.