Spring 2026
East Wing, February 21 – June 7, 2026
Jan Roos (1951), born and still residing in Harlingen, is one of the most important Frisian painters. His work is deeply rooted in the harbor and landscape of his hometown. From February 21 to June 7, 2026, Museum Belvédère will present the exhibition Jan Roos – On the Borderline of Land and Sea, showcasing an extensive selection of monumental harbor scenes from the artist's studio. Most of these works have never been shown in a museum before.
Roos studied at the Vredeman de Vries Academy in Leeuwarden and the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht. In the 1970s, he was influenced by the German art movement Die Neue Wilden, but unlike these artists, who often dealt with contemporary issues and activism, Roos focused on painting from observation, directly in the open air.
Back in Harlingen, he found his major themes in the harbor areas of his city—from the shipyard near his home to the industrial harbor, the fish auctions, floating docks, and piers.
To work quickly on location, Roos swapped oil paints for acrylics, which dry faster, and canvas for sturdy ship packaging paper that he found in the harbor. He often painted on the ground, bent over or sitting on his knees, literally placing himself in the moment, surrounded by the sounds, smells, and sensations of the harbor.
Roos' work is a sensory experience that is not only visual, but where hearing, smelling, and feeling the surroundings also play an essential role.
Under his painter’s hands, his subjects are sublimated into images that are as powerful as they are melancholic, showing us the beauty, the grandeur, but also the fleeting nature of what unfolds on the borderline between land and sea.
"That spectacular blue welding light that, at dusk, gives the surroundings a completely different appearance for a moment. I only had five minutes to capture it, because that’s how long it took before the welding rod needed to be replaced. That light appears in many of my works." – Jan Roos
Presentation Spring 2026
West Wing, February 21 – June 7, 2026
Anne Marie Blaupot ten Cate was born in 1902 in Friesland and grew up in Arnhem. After her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague and the Rijksacademy in Amsterdam, she made many international trips, including to France, Spain, Switzerland, Morocco, and the Dutch East Indies. In connection with the recently published book Anne Marie Blaupot ten Cate – A Tumultuous Life by Hanneke Boonstra, Museum Belvédère has curated an exhibition featuring the few known artworks by her.
In her painting, Blaupot ten Cate followed the stylistic trends of her time, with a particular focus on the female portrait in the 1930s and an open view of the developments in modern art in the years after the war. While her early, realistically oriented work is characterized by a fine sense of color values, in her later paintings, she explored the possibilities of more intense color use and various forms of abstraction. In addition to painting, Blaupot ten Cate also worked on collages and textile assemblages in this later period. Anne Marie Blaupot ten Cate passed away in 2002, just shy of her 100th birthday.
The book Anne Marie Blaupot ten Cate – A Tumultuous Life is available for purchase in the museum shop.
West Wing, February 21 – June 7, 2026
Visual artist Dirk Bakker (1949–2021) painted in relative isolation, with a keen sense for color, form, and composition, creating the most whimsical depictions. While his work shares stylistic similarities with artists from the New Figuration movement, it strikes a completely different tone. Bakker’s paintings lack the seriousness and often intellectual approach typical of other figurative artists, instead exuding the disarming atmosphere of children's book illustrations. But however playful, accessible, and humorous Bakker's paintings may appear, there often lurks something unsettling in these surreal visual riddles—an underlying expression of the inner conflicts of an artist who struggled to connect with the outside world.
When Dirk Bakker and his wife were forced to move due to illness, there was no one to take care of his art. Beyond their control, hundreds of paintings were sent to second-hand stores. Shortly afterward, Dirk Bakker passed away, and his artist friend Theo de Feyter learned what had happened to his work. With great effort, he managed to rescue a small portion, from which Museum Belvédère made a selection as a tribute to this unique artistic career.
A publication titled Dirk Bakker – Image Riddles, with a text by Theo de Feyter, will be released in conjunction with the exhibition.
West Wing, February 21 – June 7, 2026
Jan Jordens (1883–1962) was one of the founding members of the Groningen artists' group De Ploeg, though he was less in the spotlight during the pre-war years compared to figures like Jan Wiegers, Jan Altink, and Johan Dijkstra. After his retirement as a drawing teacher, he was able to fully focus on his artistic career, and became one of the pioneers of modern art in the North of the Netherlands. One of the highlights of his post-war work are the watercolors he created during his annual summer stays on Schiermonnikoog, depicting dunes and fir trees. The small exhibition that Museum Belvédère has curated in connection with the release of the book De Ploeg on Schiermonnikoog shows how Jordens found complete freedom in watercolor painting, how figuration dissolves into abstraction, and how sensory perceptions under his painter’s hand transform into sensations of light and color.
The book De Ploeg on Schiermonnikoog, written by Peter Jordens, is available for purchase in the museum shop.
West Wing, February 21 – June 7, 2026
The ELEMENTS series by artist Marije Bouman (1971) is the result of an exploration into the space that arises within small, vertical works on paper, using landscape elements. Clouds become mountains, the earth dissolves into the sky, a road winds off into the distance beyond the horizon, and water reflects more light than air. "These are observations detached from logical thinking," Bouman explains. "For me, this creates an opening into the space of the mind."
Marije Bouman lives and works in Heerenveen and is represented in the collection of Museum Belvédère with several works.
A publication was released in conjunction with the exhibition, combining a selection from the ELEMENTS series with fragments from an important 11th-century treatise by the Chinese ink painter Kwo Sji.
West Wing, February 21 – June 7, 2026
On January 7, 2020, Sjoerd de Vries, one of the most important visual artists from Friesland, passed away at the age of 78. In the final months of his life, Janny Dijkstra filmed him in his studio while he worked, accompanied by classical music from his favorite station, Radio 4. Her film, with few words, became an intimate and sincere document of an artist who continued to create until the very end—drawing on paper and carving into cardboard. The vulnerability of life, a recurring theme in his work, takes on additional significance in the film.
The film Sjoerd de Vries – Final Movement was recorded with a mobile phone and edited by Janny Dijkstra.
Summer 2026
East Wing, 20 juni – 20 september 2026
A retrospective exhibition of one of the most important female English modernists of the last century. Barns-Graham’s work was previously shown at Museum Belvédère as part of the group exhibition Living the Landscape – Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and the artists of St. Ives (1939–1975).
Fall 2026
Entire Museum, September 24 – September 27, 2026
An annual art fair featuring approximately 20 participating galleries and art dealers from Friesland and Groningen, along with some guest participants from other parts of the country. Art Noord aims to be an accessible platform where gallery owners, artists, collectors, art enthusiasts, and many others can gather in a relaxed museum atmosphere to view and purchase art.
Verwacht: winter 2026
West Wing, October 10, 2026 – January 17, 2027
In the previous exhibitions Relations & Contrasts in 2021 and 2023, selections were shown from the extensive art collection of Hans and Cora de Vries. In this third edition, key pieces from this private collection, which is fully housed in Museum Belvédère, will be displayed in relation to key works from the museum’s permanent collection.
Oranje Nassaulaan 12
8448 MT Heerenveen-Oranjewoud
0513-644999
info@museumbelvedere.nl
