AMSTERDAM.- Rudi Fuchs, the uncompromising art historian who served as director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam from 1993 to 2003, passed away last Sunday, October 25 2026.

With his passing, the art world has lost an authoritative and unconventional voice. As an art historian, exhibition maker and museum director, he left his mark on the way modern and contemporary art is approached.

Rudi Fuchs was one of the most influential museum directors of the last 50 years. He made his name as director of the Van Abbemuseum; as artistic director of Documenta 7 in 1982 (the only edition ever led by a Dutch person), he established himself as a champion of neo-Expressionism; at the Haagse Gemeentemuseum, he transformed perceptions of Mondrian and as director of the Stedelijk he surprised audiences with unexpected combinations and innovative presentation formats. Fuchs brought a distinct vision to Amsterdam, grounded in a fundamental belief in the autonomy of the artwork and the importance of a direct encounter between viewer and art.

From the outset of his career, Rudi Fuchs took a highly idiosyncratic approach to exhibition-making, presenting unexpected combinations of work by different artists and in different styles. The similarities and contrasts between his contemporaries proved a fertile field of exploration, inspiring him to present Daniel Buren alongside Georg Baselitz, and Gilbert & George opposite Bruce Nauman. Fuchs did not follow the traditional linear narrative of art history: his choices were based on close, attentive looking.

In his highly acclaimed Couplets series, he sought out visual confrontations between artists and artworks, thereby bringing his own personality into play. As curator, he worked alongside the artists. He drew inspiration from his long-standing friendships with artists such as Donald Judd, Jörg Immendorf, James Lee Byars and Jan Dibbets.

Following traces

Rudi Fuchs did not regard managing a museum collection as a static task, but as a dynamic process. In his essay Spoorzoeken (‘Following Traces’), published in an acquisitions catalogue after his departure from the Stedelijk in 2003, he described collecting in a historic museum as ‘continuing to work on a patchwork quilt’. The core collection formed its backbone and outline, but in his view, that outline needed to remain flexible and open to contemporary artistic developments.

In his acquisitions policy, Fuchs deliberately sought out works that he described as ‘audacious’, ‘headstrong’ or ‘contrary’. In his view, such objects were necessary to unsettle the existing order and thus keep the collection in motion. At the same time, he had an eye for the ‘contemplative’: art in which the maker engages in a dialogue with themselves and invites the viewer to follow their inquiring gaze. For Fuchs, comparison was ‘the soul of the museum’. By presenting very different works in a dialogue setting, he enabled visitors to draw connections and make their own comparisons.

The reconfiguration and Het Materiaal

Upon taking up his post in February 1993, Rudi Fuchs immediately made his ambitions clear with his inaugural exhibition Het Materiaal (‘The Material’). This exhibition marked a thorough overhaul of the Stedelijk’s permanent collection display. The museum’s customary white walls were repainted in soft pastel colours, and the collection presentation was radically reconfigured.

Fuchs opted for unconventional juxtapositions that broke with strict chronology. Placing a work by Yves Klein opposite one by Ellsworth Kelly reflected his conviction that works of art should be able to engage in dialogue across the boundaries of styles and periods.

The Material served as a first step towards a coherent presentation in preparation for the new building then being planned. The exhibition demonstrated his particular gift for creating striking visual configurations, an approach that would later become known in his practice as his Couplets.

Balance in the collection and Dutch art

Fuchs’s acquisitions policy reflected an unwavering loyalty to the artists of his own generation, including Georg Baselitz, Markus Lüpertz, Jörg Immendorff and A.R. Penck. Although he was occasionally criticised within the art world for placing too much emphasis on these established names, his policy followed a clear art-historical logic.

A telling example was the acquisition of Baselitz’s early work Fingermalerei. Akt (1972). Where his predecessor, Edy de Wilde, had mainly acquired Baselitz’s later, more dynamic works, Fuchs believed that this early, cooler piece restored a balance to the collection in relation to American Minimalists such as Robert Ryman.

Fuchs recognised the historical necessity of this post-war generation of German artists, who had to redefine painting in the shadow of the Second World War. He also placed great importance on acquiring works by young Dutch artists, such as Rob Birza, Robert Zandvliet, Avery Preesman and Steven Aalders. He was convinced that the art of one’s own country, being closest to one’s own sensibility, should have a permanent place in the nation’s museums. He recognised that, in terms of scale, the Stedelijk could not compete with institutions such as MoMA or the Tate, but noted that it was precisely the remarkable diversity of the Amsterdam collection that created an adventurous mix that invited comparison.

A classical humanist approach

Rudi Fuchs’s vision was rooted in a classical European humanism. He placed the artwork at the centre and was unwilling to subordinate it to political or social objectives. When he brought the exhibition Zuiderkruis to Amsterdam in 1993 – the first official presentation of South African art following the end of the apartheid regime – in communications with the press, he emphatically stressed artistic autonomy: “The exhibition is about art. It is not a political statement.”

This focus on the aesthetic and formal qualities of art did not, however, preclude social engagement within the museum. While Fuchs concentrated on constructing a coherent art-historical narrative, he gave the curatorial team the freedom to present socially engaged projects in the surrounding galleries, such as Koen Wessing’s documentary photography from South Africa and the Commitment poster series on the AIDS epidemic.

An enduring methodology

We remember Rudi Fuchs’s directorship as a period in which tradition served as a backdrop for change. For him, collecting and exhibiting art meant constructing a coherent narrative of the trends in art that were relevant to the museum. He demonstrated that iconic works can act as focal points for future narratives and new acquisitions.

Not everything went smoothly. Fuchs’s policies also attracted considerable criticism, and his plan for a new Stedelijk wing, designed by Álvaro Siza, was never realised. The city council postponed plans for the new building, and Fuchs decided to step down, having organised a major exhibition of Tracy Emin’s work in 2003 – the first survey of her oeuvre worldwide.

For many years afterwards, he would share his idiosyncratic view of art with independent Dutch weekly news magazine De Groene Amsterdammer. In 2016, at the invitation of the Stedelijk, he curated the exhibition Opwinding (‘Excitement’), in which he looked back on his long career as a museum director and exhibition maker through a selection of his acquisitions.

With the passing of Rudi Fuchs, the art world bids farewell to a man who, through carefully chosen words and a discerning eye, contributed to Dutch museum collections. The way in which he brought artworks into dialogue with one another, and his insistence on close, attentive looking, will endure.

-- Rein Wolfs, Frank van Lamoen, Leontine Coelewij