Pieter Scheen

Vocation

Lifestyle

Dutch art dealer, collector and writer on Dutch art history. His father was the painter and art dealer Pieter Scheen. He became an art dealer in 1931, specializing in Dutch Romantic masters and the Hague School. In 1946 he published "Honderd jaren Nederlandsche schilder- en teekenkunst. De Romantiek met voor- en natijd (1750-1850)" (hundred years Dutch Painting and Art of Drawing). The book described with black and white illustrations more than 3000 Dutch painters and became a standard work for art dealers and historians. In 1971 he got the Buchelius-Prize for it. In the sixties he started his greatest project. It culminated between 1969 and 1970 when he published the two parts of his standard work "Lexicon Nederlandse Beeldende Kunstenaars 1750-1950", this time with coloured illustrations. It costed him tons of energy and others, like Koppejan, thought he had died afterwards. But actually he had retired with his wife, the artist Elske van Santen to the French Riviera. Halfway the eighties they turned back to Holland, settling near the Crown Estates of Apeldoorn. With the same eager he once studied art history, he now became an enthusiastic bird watcher. He photographed the owls in his garden resulting in the book "De uilenkast en andere verhalen" (Owls houseand Other Stories). He also held an aviary for ill, struck and hunted birds. His autobiographical work "De race en andere verhalen" was illustrated by his spouse Elske van Santen. He died 10 November 2003 in Apeldoorn. Link to Dutch Wikipedia