east wing

Please note: For the international exhibition Sámal Joensen-Mikines – Always the Sea, we charge a €2.00 surcharge.

Sámal Joensen-Mikines – Always the Sea

October 11, 2025 – February 8, 2026

Museum Belvédère presents the first solo exhibition in the Netherlands featuring the work of Sámal Joensen-Mikines (1906–1979), born in the Faroe Islands. The artist worked mainly on the island of Mykines — which he was named after — and drew inspiration from his immediate surroundings: the sea, the rugged hills, the barren slopes, and the small fishing villages. His work is in between Impressionism and Expressionism, focusing above all on light and space.

Throughout his life, Mikines divided his time between the Faroe Islands in the Atlantic Ocean and Denmark, where he was regarded as one of the foremost artists of his generation.

The exhibition at Museum Belvédère features mainly landscapes and seascapes that show affinities with the work of northern Dutch landscape painters represented in the museum’s collection. A Dutch-language monograph will accompany the exhibition.

Works by Sámal Joensen-Mikines are held in the National Gallery of Denmark (SMK) in Copenhagen and in all other major museums in Denmark. The largest museum collection of Mikines’s works is housed in the National Gallery of the Faroe Islands (Listasavn Føroya) in Tórshavn.

Director Han Steenbruggen traveled to the Faroe Islands

From May 7 to 10, 2025, a delegation of approximately twenty Frisian representatives visited the Faroe Islands. Led by King's Commissioner Arno Brok, the trip focused on studying the successful language and cultural policy of the archipelago, where approximately 60,000 people speak the Faroese language. The delegation included aldermen and representatives from the Frisian cultural sector, including the Fryske Akademy and the Afûk Foundation.

Director Han Steenbruggen represented Museum Belvédère during the trip:

"The further north we went, the more everything around us became atomized, and shapes were reduced to vague planes and veils of color. Further on, a pale sun suddenly broke open the sky, casting a beam of light across the sea to the island on the other side. Screened greens, blues, and ochres. Mikines' paintings are hidden in every view here."