Collection Aad de Haas

In 1994 and 1995, the Stadsgalerij (later SCHUNCK Museum) acquired a significant part of Aad De Haas' artistic legacy.

Work by the artist can be found in several museum collections and in various private collections spread throughout the Netherlands. The largest collection of Aad de Haas can be found in the SCHUNCK Collection in Heerlen. The idiosyncratic painter and graphic artist Aad de Haas (1920 Rotterdam - Schaesberg 1972) played an entirely individual role in the Limburg art scene in the years after World War II.

Part of the Limburg Moderns Collection

SCHUNCK Museum's Aad de Haas collection provides a representative overview of his oeuvre and is fairly complete in its current form. Because of the completeness of the sub-collection, SCHUNCK now focuses mainly on research and accessibility. However, the museum remains alert to opportunities to expand the De Haas collection, but with a particularly critical eye and special attention to early work in particular, or special works from the later periods. This collection is part of the Limburg Moderns collection, created in cooperation with the Limburg Museums.

Aad de Haas: work and life

De Haas' life and his extensive oeuvre are of great value; for Limburg and for the Netherlands. During World War II, his work was labelled 'entartet' by the Germans and he ended up in prison. In 1944, he managed to flee with his wife Nel to South Limburg, where he continued to live and work for the rest of his life as a moving and socially engaged artist. He is best known for his religiously inclined work. In the years after World War II, he played an entirely unique role in the Limburg art climate. He resolutely rejected trend-sensitive developments and continued to work in a very particular and personal oeuvre in a figurative, expressionist tradition. With de Haas, this wilfulness was not a stylistic issue. He is characterised by an absolute fusion of his life and work and by relentless production: he could not help but make 'beautiful things' entirely for his 'own amusement'. De Haas was always a tad contrary in his work attitude and life; activism and autonomy went hand in hand with him.

Aad de Haas died at the age of 51 and left behind a large oeuvre of works in various techniques and styles, which recognisably reflect his unique visual language and the universal themes that were important to him. Religion, suffering, power, seduction and eroticism are recurring themes in his work, often intertwined with experiences from his personal life. De Haas' work holds up a mirror to society, so to speak: his art speaks of a conscience.