Daan van Golden

In the year Schiedam celebrates 750 years of city rights, the museum honours the life and work of Daan van Golden (1936-2017), who lived most of his life in this city. On display are his meditative paintings that made him world-famous, photographs, collages and graphic works that are often inseparable from it.

A chequered tea towel, a piece of wrapping paper, an image in the newspaper or a blurred photograph. For painter Daan van Golden (1936-2017), these are not meaningless images, but serious subjects for his art. With great concentration, he copies existing patterns or discovers beauty in the chance moments he captures with the camera. It makes Daan van Golden one of the most idiosyncratic artists the Netherlands has known. The exhibition Daan van Golden. The Original at Stedelijk Museum Schiedam gives an overview of his extraordinary oeuvre. On show are the meditative paintings that made Van Golden world-famous, alongside the many photographs, collages and graphic work that are often inextricably linked to them. The concept of originality takes on a whole new meaning: no longer the creation of something new is paramount, but seeing the beauty in what is already there.