Collection
The Charles and Jeanne Vandenhove Collection
In 2012, Charles and Jeanne Vandenhove donated their collection of nearly two hundred works of art from the period 1950–2010, together with the so-called Vandenhove Pavilion, to Ghent University.
The Vandenhove Centre manages the collection, which is housed in a storage facility in the Boekentoren. Some works from the collection are on permanent or long-term display at the centre, whilst others are regularly included in the temporary exhibitions organised by the centre.
The collection displays a diversity typical of private collections. It includes works by world-renowned artists (Pierre Alechinsky, Asger Jorn, Anselm Kiefer, Luc Tuymans, Andy Warhol) as well as by lesser-known artists. The Vandenhove couple purchased ‘typical’ works by many artists, whilst the collection also comprises a number of remarkable, surprising pieces. Many of the artists in the collection collaborated with Vandenhove as an architect on various projects: Daniel Buren, Sol LeWitt, Giulio Paolini, Niele Toroni, Marthe Wéry, Léon Wuidar, and so on.
Key themes in the collection include post-war lyrical abstraction, Pop Art, minimalism and the French Supports/Surfaces group. The Vandenhove collection also features photographs and audiovisual works by artists such as Bernd & Hilla Becher, Gilbert Fastenaekens, Nan Goldin, Sophie Ristelhueber and David Claerbout. The collection contains complete sets of works by artists such as Olivier Debré, Luis Feito, Simon Hantaï, Louis Le Groumellec, Henri Michaux, Jean-Pierre Pincemin and Antoni Tàpies.
Exceptional works by Martin Barré, Georges Matthieu and Pierre Soulages have been officially recognised on the Flemish ‘list of masterpieces’.
Artists and artworks
BARRÉ Martin
BARRY Robert
BEAUDRY Charlotte
BECHER Bernd & Hilla
BERROCAL Miguel
BISSIÈRE Roger
BOLTANSKI Christian
BUREN Daniel
CAILLE Pierre
CANE Louis
CÉSAR Baldaccini
CHARLIER Jacques
CHILLIDA Eduardo
CHRISTO Javacheff
CLAERBOUT David
CORILLON Patrick
DEBRÉ Olivier
DELAHAUT Jo
DEZEUZE Daniel
DINE Jim
DOTREMONT Christian
FAIGENBAUM Patrick
FASTENAEKENS Gilbert
FEITO Luis
FLANAGAN Barry
FOLON Jean-Michel
GERDES Ludger
GOLDIN Nan
HAMINSKY Kim
HANTAÏ Simon
HAYTER Stanley-William
HERS François
HOCKNEY David
HOLZER Jenny
IPOUSTÉGUY Jean
JORN Asger
KERMARREC Joël
KIEFER Anselm
KLASEN Peter
KOENIG John-Franklin
KOO Jeong-A
KUCHENMEISTER Rainer
LAENEN Jean-Paul
LAVIER Bertrand
LE GROUMELLEC Loïc
LÉVÊQUE Claude
LEWITT Sol
LIZENE Jacques
LOGO Otto
MANESSIER Alfred
MARFAING André
MATHIEU Georges
MATISSE Henri
MERVEILLE Louis
MICHAUX Henri
MUSIC Zoran
NITSCH Hermann
PANAMARENKO
PAOLINI Giulio
PINCEMIN Jean-Pierre
POIRIER Anne & Patrick
RAINER Arnulf
RAYNAUD Jean-Pierre
RISTELHUEBER Sophie
ROMUS André
ROULIN Félix
SATO ADO
SAURA Antonio
SCAUFLAIRE Edgard
SCHNEIDER Gérard
SEMERARO Antonio
SERRANO Andres
SERRA Richard
SONDERBORG
SOULAGES Pierre
SPRONKEN Arthur
STREBELLE Olivier
TÀPIES Antoni
TITUS-CARMEL Gérard
TORONI Niele
TUYMANS Luc
UBAC Raoul
VAN SEVEREN Dan
VERCRUYSSE Jan
VIALLAT Claude
VISEUX Claude
WARHOL Andy
WERTH Berno
WÉRY Marthe
WUIDAR Léon
WYCKAERT Maurice
ZACK Léon
Other collections
Victor Dauginet
Victor Dauginet has placed a collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century French drawings on long-term loan to VANDENHOVE. In 2022, a wide selection was exhibited by curator Marc Lambrechts in the exhibition ‘French Drawings from Delacroix to Bonnard’. The collection is available as study and exhibition material for students and researchers.
Paul De Vylder
Author and visual artist, former lecturer in semiotics at KASK University College Ghent (and a former art history student at Ghent University), Paul De Vylder (1942–2022) donated a representative body of work through the Vandenhove Fund of the King Baudouin Foundation.
The donation comprises photographic work from the 1990s, a number of so-called ‘tar paintings’ from the 1980s, three wall sculptures, and several objects from the 1980s and 1990s, as well as the complete series of prints *Les Demoiselles de Saint Antoine*.
Nadine Tasseel
Photographer and artist Nadine Tasseel (1953–2020) donated an extensive selection of her work to the Vandenhove Fund at the King Baudouin Foundation in 2021.
Koen van den Broek
In January 2023, Koen van den Broek created a mural on three walls of the auditorium in the Vandenhove Pavilion. The frieze, *Plants, Shadows and Models (Mural)*, draws inspiration from the paintings and stained-glass windows of Henri Matisse’s *Chapelle du Rosaire* in Vence. The design drawings and the model for the project were donated to the Centre.
Joseph Kosuth
Following the exhibition *Eight Years: Joseph Kosuth in Ghent from 1990 to 1998* (2024), Hugo Criekemans donated two editions of the work *Text/Context*, which Kosuth created in 1978 for the Friends of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Ghent.
Jenny Van Driessche and Plus-Kern
Between 2020 and 2024, Jenny Van Driessche donated the archive of Galerie Plus-Kern to the Boekentoren; the gallery served as a hub for the avant-garde scene in Ghent and Brussels from the 1960s to the 1980s. She also donated to VANDENHOVE a series of works by artists represented by the gallery, such as Carl Andre, Leo Copers and Carlo Mistiaen.