Data in Context

Just how diverse is the Centraal Museum’s collection? Guided by the principle that ‘to measure is to know’, the museum’s Inclusion & Diversity working group has been exploring this question since 2022. In this article, we share the initial results of the baseline assessment and outline the position of women artists in a (still) predominantly male art world.

For a long time, the work of women artists was not taken seriously or faded into obscurity over time. In the Netherlands, for example, women were denied admission to most art schools until 1871. And prejudices against women’s work persisted well into the twentieth century.

In a review of the exhibition Women’s Palette: Her Art, Her Story (1900–1950) (Museum Dr8888 in Drachten and De Wieger in Deurne), art historian Merel van Tilburg highlights the conservative and sexist art criticism of the early twentieth century. Her analysis clearly illuminates how prevailing ideas at the time—such as ‘art is a male affair’ (1927)—fostered mechanisms of exclusion. Van Tilburg describes how the work of women artists was not regarded as art. ‘Three women exhibited alongside the painters,’ she read in a 1937 issue of De Groene Amsterdammer. Their work was analysed according to entirely different criteria from that of their male colleagues: sensitive, instinctive, earthy, maternal. And, she continues, because of this presumed earthiness, ‘women are incapable of abstraction’—signed, Piet Mondrian. As a result, the work of women artists fell into obscurity and was not systematically preserved, exhibited or discussed. The effects of this are still felt today.

More than thirty years after the Guerrilla Girls, the call for gender equality in museum collections and exhibitions remains painfully relevant. In 2022, the research report ‘A Story Yet Untold’ was published on gender (in)equality in the art world. The results speak for themselves: a survey of eight Dutch museums found that only 13 percent of the collection pieces on display were made by women.

A survey by De Volkskrant of 28 Dutch museums found an average of 17 percent. A different percentage, but again, by no means a reflection of society. The report quotes art historian Griselda Pollock, who describes the importance of balanced representation as follows: ‘If you go to the National Gallery in London, or to the Rijksmuseum or the Louvre, as a visitor, whether you are 5 or 50, you learn that no woman has ever done anything worth displaying or collecting, and therefore that women are not valuable either. The same applies if we are never given the opportunity to see the world through the eyes and experiences of people who are Black, queer, working-class or disabled. We get a distorted picture, and that fuels racism and inequality.’

The Centraal Museum also recognises the importance of balanced representation, not only in terms of gender, but also in terms of cultural background, skin colour, physical or mental ability, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic status, level of education or age.

When preparing exhibitions and programmes, the museum examines which perspectives are missing within its own ranks. We involve external experts and local communities to give underrepresented stories a place in the museum as well. But, like many other Dutch museums, we still have a long way to go.

For example, what about the more than 60,000 objects in our collection? To what extent do they reflect the residents of the city or province of Utrecht? The Centraal Museum’s collection is exceptionally diverse in terms of style, material and period of creation, but to what extent can we say that its makers are diverse in terms of gender, cultural background or socioeconomic status?

In 1830, Mayor Van Asch van Wijck founded the museum to display the city's collection of archaeological artefacts to the public. Over the years, the museum developed into a place that brings together several types of collections, ranging from urban history to fashion, design, and historical, modern and contemporary art.

Each subcollection has its own collecting history, and each discipline has its own characteristics. The fashion collection, for example, was built through donations from upper-class women, who gave their gowns and special garments to the museum. As a result, the earliest clothing primarily reflects a particular social class. But it is more difficult to determine who made those garments. At the same time, in 1917, the first paid fashion curator was appointed—an exceptional development worldwide. Jonkvrouw Carla de Jonge began her career as an archivist of the museum collection, but within a short time she established a permanent costume display and significantly expanded the collection. These distinct collecting histories and the different ways in which the subcollections were catalogued make analysing diversity a complex task.

In 2022, the museum launched a large-scale study into the diversity of its collection. The study began with a baseline assessment to provide greater insight into the nature and composition of the collection, while also offering a perspective on underrepresented stories and objects. The research team, consisting of Chantal Perlee—Senior Documentation & Research Officer—interns Fleur Mulder and Marte van der Salm, and the undersigned, took the first steps. In this initial phase, we focused primarily on gender. We examined the representation of men, women, and makers who do not identify as either, as well as anonymous makers and collectives. We collected the data by object rather than by maker, for each decade from 1830 to the present, and calculated the percentages across the collection as a whole.

These figures call for reflection and context. For example, the study raises questions about the binary approach of the collection registration system, which makes it difficult to do justice to LGBTQI+ artists as well. But it also raises other questions: what kinds of objects by women makers are involved? Were they purchased or donated, and what economic and historical value do or did they represent? Were they frequently exhibited, and if so, in what context? Or did they remain mostly in storage?

In the coming period, we will conduct further research into this. We will work with various experts to interpret the data. In doing so, we hope to carry out an in-depth analysis of the collection in terms of diversity. We invite experts to critically examine the research framework and make recommendations for the next steps.