Four more museums of modern art will be opening their doors this year, all paid for by wealthy families or business people, RTL Nieuws reported.

Bugaboo boss Eduard Zanen is paying for the renovation of the industrial Van Gendthallen in Amsterdam which will become home to the Drift Museum in the autumn. It will feature experimental installations.

The  Van der Vorm family,  who own the HAL investment company, is funding the Fenix Museum in an old warehouse in Katendrecht in Rotterdam. The museum will focus on migration and modern art and opens in May.

In Zaandstad, Flemish entrepreneur and Limburg art collector Ernest Mourmans is opening ZAMu in a former munitions factory which will house their collections of modern art.

Meanwhile, former banker Arjen Pels Rijcken is trying to establish a Dutch version of the National Portrait Gallery in London. situated in an old PTT building in the Frankendael park in Amsterdam. The opening is planned for the end of the year.

“I need another €900,000 of the €2.3 million needed to open the museum. We want to leave the country a museum that has been lacking so far. Portraits have a story to tell. I am not making any money from this, on the contrary, but I get a kick out of doing it,” he told RTL Nieuws.

According to culture sociologist Olav Velthuis private museums funded by wealthy people are part of a worldwide trend.  “There is a growing number of very rich people, including in the Netherlands, who can afford to buy modern art and restore historic buildings. Quite a few of them have a passion for art,” he said.

Director Sietske van Zanten of the privately funded LAM museum in Lisse said the Van den Broek family, of supermarket fame, did not initially show much interest in art.

“That changed when at a later age they discovered how art enriched their lives. A boat or a house is something to enjoy privately but art is something to give the next generations,” she said. The museum focuses on art connected with food and consumption “because that is how the money was made after all,” Van Zanten said.

Risks

Velthuis said there is nothing inherently wrong with rich people creating their own museums but that it comes with risks. The museum may not continue if the owner dies or goes bankrupt, which is what happened to banker Dirk Scheringa whose museum for realism was closed and the works dispersed.

The museums may also struggle to attract visitors once the novelty wears off, he said.

Velthuis said Dutch millionaires are unique in not naming the museums for themselves. “They prefer to remain in the background. It’s the Dutch tradition of not wanting to stand out,” he said.

Meanwhile, work is progressing on the renovation of a former court building in Amsterdam. It will house “experiments with new forms of modern art” and is funded by billionaire Rob Defares, founder of Amsterdam-based electronic trading firm IMC. The museum is scheduled to open in 2028.