Second Season Opening in the Dutch Salon

On 26 September, 2003, the State Hermitage Museum officially opened the second season of the Dutch Salon. The event was part of the annual festival of Dutch culture "Window on the Netherlands" organized by the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in St. Petersburg. Guests were showed the exhibition CoBrA and Contemporaries from the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and heard a lecture of Dr. Willemein Stockfis the Netherlands) about this group of artists.

The Dutch Salon is a new form of contacts the Hermitage offers art lovers, including monthly meetings on the museum’s premises with the Hermitage researchers, St. Petersburg scholars and guests from the Netherlands. Program of the Dutch Salon includes lectures about the history and culture of Holland and Belgium, poetry and music performances and video films.

The program is proposed and conducted by Alla Kamchatova, Senior Researcher of the State Hermitage Museum, and is supported by the Dutch Institute in St. Petersburg (Director Lyudmila Chevalier). The first season of the Dutch Salon (autumn 2002 - spring 2003) provoked keen interest in the St. Petersburg public. The Hermitage events were also attended by Dutchmen living or working in our city. Among the invitees were the famous writer G. Mack, Professor of the Amsterdam University, P.N. Holtrop, Professor of the Theological University in Kampen, I. Sokolova, Custodian of Dutch Paintings at the State Hermitage Museum, I. Mikhaylova of the St. Petersburg State University, and others. The Dutch Institute published texts of the lectures in a single book, which became an excellent gift to all guests of the Dutch Salon.

The program of the new season is varied. Guests will be introduced both to the classical age of the art of the Netherlands and to its less known episodes, and learn about the cultural contacts between Russia and the Netherlands and Belgium.