The Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, The Netherlands, opens its exhibition The Jacques & Miny Defauwes Collection. The show revolves around the friendship between the couple Jacques and Miny Defauwes and the artist Jaap Mooy (1915-1987). A selection of works by Jaap Mooy and by contemporary artists from the Defauwes collection forms the basis for a refreshing view of these distinctive collectors.
Jacques and Miny Defauwes
In the early 1980s, the orthopedic shoemaker Jacques Defauwes and his wife Miny Defauwes-Bovens were introduced by the Limburg painter Lei Molin (1927-1990) to Jaap Mooy (1916-1987), an artist from Bergen. They soon built up a close friendship with Mooy. The couple were attracted to Mooy’s ability to put moral and spiritual matters into words as well as to his social conscience and political engagement.
The years of intense contact with the flamboyant Mooy appear to have been formative for Defauwes. Over the years, he expanded his collection with some remarkably contentious works by contemporary artists from The Netherlands and abroad, some of which he exhibited at the business premises of his company, Defauwes Orthopedische Schoentechniek. Jacques Defauwes was also the initiator of and long-standing driving force behind the Parkstad Limburg Prize for young talent, and he and his wife regularly give commissions to artists.
The exhibition includes sculptures by Piet Killaars, Andrei Roiter, Simon Schubert and Mehdi-Georges Lahlou, installations by Les Deux Garçons, Jeroen van Bergen, Jos Berkers, Tracey Snelling and Kristian Kozul, photography by Katharina Sieverding and works on paper by Hadassah Emmerich, Jasper de Beijer, Georg Herold, Alexander Gorlizki and Lei Molin.
The Jacques & Miny Defauwes Collection will be presented at the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, The Netherlands, from October 13, 2017, to 27 May 2018.