pr:P1683
| - Karel Gerard Boon was a noted museum director and expert on Dutch prints. Born in Lawang, Indonesia in 1909, he studied art history at Amsterdam University in the Netherlands before completing his studies in Paris at the Sorbonne and the École du Louvre. He began his museum career as a volunteer at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where he caught the attention of M.D. Henkel, the museum’s Keeper of Drawings. Impressed with Boon’s discerning eye and knowledge of Dutch art, Henkel took Boon under his wing and made him his assistant. Under the tutelage of Henkel, Boon developed an interest for late fifteenth-century prints, a fascination which dictated the rest of his career. In 1940 Boon was appointed as an assistant at the Municipal Museum of The Hague, where he helped create Algemeene Kunstgeschiedenis (1941), a six-volume Dutch survey of art history. Following their invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940, the Nazis purged Dutch museums of all staff members with Jewish ancestry. Although Boon himself was not Jewish, it angered him to witness the disrespect shown to his colleagues and friends. (en)
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