Delineavit

Ger Luijten (1956-2022) passed away unexpectedly

Ger Luijten on 24 May 2022 during the Keepers Conference (50Lux Club) in Teylers Museum, Haarlem

20 December 2022 / The Hague

The sad and shocking news reached us that on Monday morning, 19 December 2022, Ger Luijten, director of the Fondation Custodia / Collection Frits Lugt in Paris, died unexpectedly at the age of 66.

Prior to his appointment in Paris, Luijten was curator at the Print Room of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam (1987-90) and at the Rijksprentenkabinet of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (1990-2010), of which he had also been head since 2001. In this capacity, he was also a member and, in 2010-14, president of the International Advisory Committee of Keepers of Public Collections of Graphic Art, better known as the 50Lux Club, in which the 50 most important print rooms worldwide are represented.

At the Fondation Custodia on Rue de Lille, which underwent extensive renovation and expansion of the exhibition rooms under his inspired leadership, he organised many successful exhibitions and realised many important new acquisitions, not only drawings and prints, but also nineteenth-century oil sketches. His thorough art-historical knowledge, great commitment to the research, publication and presentation of drawings and prints, and his inspiring enthusiasm will be sorely missed.

For our specialist journal Delineavit et Sculpsit in particular, the structural financial support provided by the Fondation Custodia since 2013, through Luijten’s personal involvement, has been indispensable.

Our thoughts are with Ger’s family and close colleagues.

Board and editors of Delineavit et Sculpsit

An extensive obituary was published in the Dutch daily NRC (click here).

Ger Luijten examining an Italian drawing during an expert meeting of the Boijmans-Getty Paper Project at the depository of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 10-11 October 2019