A fresh and full installation of the Iziko Michaelis Collection, Cape Town’s famous collection of 17th-century Dutch and Flemish paintings, is now on view.
The rehang not only seeks to emulate the sense of abundance of pictures in Dutch homes of the 1600’s but also poses questions about the art-historical relationships of the “baroque” and the “modern” through the deliberate insertion of twentieth-century hard-edge and painterly abstract paintings among pictorial groupings.
Iziko Museums of South Africa operates 11 national museums in Cape Town. It is one of the premier cultural institutions in South Africa. The museums house natural history, social history and art collections in magnificent, historic buildings which in themselves are national treasures.
IZIKO is an isiXhosa word, meaning ‘hearth’, traditionally and symbolically the social centre of the home; a place associated with warmth, kinship and ancestral spirits. Here food is prepared and shared, stories are told and knowledge is passed from one generation to the next.
