CREATIVE CHANCE

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen''s Surrealism collection is world famous, but this Boijmans Study is not devoted to the oeuvres of great names in the canon like Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte. Instead, it tells the story of the idiosyncratic finds mad
e by the Dutch collectors Laurens Vancrevel and his wife Frida de Jong. Long before museums started to take notice, the couple had collected art and poetry by then relatively unknown Surrealists. Over the years, they let themselves be guided by chanc
e, friendships and random encounters, and this has resulted in a unique collection of Surrealist art from which the museum has been allowed to make a selection. The Study examines the fifty artworks that have been gifted and reflects on two approache
s to collecting: the creation of a private collection and the way Surrealism was acquired by Dutch museums like Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.