Simonis & Buunk’s extensive collection of paintings and sculpture is presented in three buildings situated close to each other on the Notaris Fischerstraat:

• the 19th century gallery
• the 20th century gallery
• the Fischer House with its adjoining sculpture garden

Each gallery has its own particular ambience, in step with the building’s architecture and in harmony with the art works on display. The interior design is a ‘gesamtkunstwerk’: colour and decoration, furnishings, music and even the floral arrangements all in keeping with each other to form an integrated whole. As the three galleries are so different, visitors have the feeling of stepping into a different ‘world’ each time, which underlines their experience of the particular art works being shown. As well as these three ‘worlds’, the fourth exhibition space is the sculpture garden behind the Fischer House.

19th century gallery

The oldest building is the 19th century gallery, at number 30, where our company was founded in 1973. Its interior, with antique wood floors and oak panelling, emanates the intimacy of art dealing around the turn of the 20th century. Here visitors find the peace and harmony of earlier times again in the paintings of the Dutch Romantics and early Impressionists of the Hague, Laren and Leiden Schools. The Art Deco and Amsterdam School furniture and lamps from Frank Buunk and Mariëtte Simonis’s private collection create a fitting setting for the 19th century paintings and sculptures on display.

20th century gallery

The clean lines of the light and airy gallery at number 19 are the setting for the 20th century collection of classic modern and post-war paintings, watercolours and sculptures. Works on display are by leading Dutch modernists from the first half of that century, among them Leo Gestel and Jan Sluijters, Expressionists from the Bergen School and Groninger Ploeg and post-war abstractionists, including Cobra. The contemporary building, purchased in 1998 and opened in 1999, is ideally suited to exhibiting the different styles and movements of the last century. The colours and architecture of the exterior were inspired by the uncompromising lines and primary colours of the Style-movement. The ground-floor interior draws on the palette used by painters of the Groninger Ploeg, which makes an outstanding backdrop for the paintings of this group.

The Fischer House

The listed building, the Fischer House, formerly the home and office of the Fischer family, an Ede firm of solicitors, opened in 2007. During the two-year restoration and refurbishing period, Simonis & Buunk were successful in retaining the warm, homely atmosphere of the original premises. With different coloured spaces and splendid play of light, it lends itself well to showing changing exhibitions about artists, movements or themes in visual art. Here you will not find a permanent chronological collection, but displays based on spontaneous, yet well-considered, perspectives. There is a fixed place, however, for work by Dutch Luminists, Neo-Impressionists, Amsterdam and Hague Impressionists as well as by Piet Mondrian. The interior is based around Frank and Mariëtte’s collection of Amsterdam and Hague School furniture, lamps and objects. The robust furniture, dating from the early 20th century, is partly machine made and then decorated and finished by hand. The Hague School, a variant of Art Deco, has characteristic straight forms made from warm types of wood. The Amsterdam School, with its more sculptural forms, is represented with typical lamps, mantle clocks, ceramics, glass as well as furniture.

> History of the Fischer House

The Sculpture Garden

Behind the Fisher House is the sculpture garden: a green, sheltered space dominated by a majestic magnolia tree. Here, within a garden scheme of beech and yew hedging, paths and rose beds, sculptures have been installed that visitors can enjoy in peace and quiet while walking about the garden or sitting on one of the two terraces. Visitors are welcome to touch the works and walk around them. Nature too plays its role: the foliage, naturally, but also the interplay of light and elements on the bronzes, depending on weather, time of day and season. After a tour, the ‘art of living’ can be exercised – enjoying the sun on the terrace, in the presence of good company perhaps, with a cup of coffee or glass of wine, or with that just purchased art book and with views that are…true works of art.

> Plan sculpture garden