The Koopman Collection at the KB, The Hague
Anyone interested in the French illustrated book or in modern artist’s books will enjoy the online presentation of the Koopman Collection at the KB, the National Library of the Netherlands: https://collecties.kb.nl/en/koopman-collection
With a focus on French literature and the book arts from 1890 to the present, the site describes and illustrates over 180 key books from the Koopman Collection (which numbers over 10,000 books). It is curated by Paul van Capelleveen. The homepage groups books in time-periods of around a decade each (with especially prolific periods such as the interwar years further subdivided). Each entry has several high-quality photographs, an invaluable contextual essay (available in Dutch, English and French) and a physical description with references. The physical description is especially useful where the books do not conform to standard bibliographical formats. Further menus allow searching and browsing by author, artist, publisher or keyword and each screen allows a direct search of the KB online catalogue.
‘The KB’s Koopman Collection contains almost complete collections of authors such as Paul Valéry, Colette, André Gide, Francis Carco and many others’
‘The Koopman Collection was bequeathed to the KB in 1968 by engineer Louis J. Koopman (1887-1968). He had continued the collection of his fiancée Anny Antoine (1897-1933), who died young. Thanks to the Anny Antoine/Louis Koopman Foundation, new acquisitions continue to be added to the collection of literary works. Many illustrated editions have been purchased since the 1970s. Since the year 2000, the focus has been on artists’ books and editions with unusual typography’ (from the KB website).
Highlights include:
- André Gide’s Le voyage d’Urien (1893) illustrated by Maurice Denis https://collecties.kb.nl/collectie-koopman/1890-1918/le-voyage-durien
- Pierre Loti’s Madame Chrysanthème (1926) with illustrations by Tsuguharu Foujita https://collecties.kb.nl/en/koopman-collection/1926-1930/madame-chrysantheme
- Max Ernst’s La Femme 100 têtes (1929) https://collecties.kb.nl/collectie-koopman/1926-1930/la-femme-100-tetes
- Jean Cocteau’s designs for Les Enfants terribles (1935) https://collecties.kb.nl/collectie-koopman/1931-1939/soixante-dessins-pour-les-enfants-terribles
- Paul Éluard’s Les Mains libres (1937) illustrated by Man Ray https://collecties.kb.nl/collectie-koopman/1931-1939/les-mains-libres
- Raymond Queneau’s Meccano ou l’analyse matricielle du langage (1966) illustrated by Enrico Baj and printed from Meccano parts https://collecties.kb.nl/collectie-koopman/1961-1975/meccano
- Alexander Calder’s Fêtes (1971) https://collecties.kb.nl/collectie-koopman/1961-1975/fetes
- Shirley Sharoff and Ian Monk’s recent artist’s book Impermanence subtile (2013) https://collecties.kb.nl/en/koopman-collection/2006-present/impermanence-subtile-subtle-impermanence
The Koopman Collection is among over seventy individually described special collections in the KB and there are presentations devoted to Alba amicorum, Spinoza, book covers (in a broad sense), penny prints, Huygens, clandestine publications from WWII, incunabula, children’s books, cookbooks, songbooks, pop-up books and medieval manuscripts, among others. The texts are all available in English at https://www.kb.nl/onderzoeken-vinden/bijzondere-collecties.
Justin Croft, member of Council