Stedelijk Museum Kampen reopens with Avercamp and his Colf Players on the Ice

Stedelijk Museum Kampen reopens to the public on Saturday 3 October 2026, the museum announces on its website. The local Kampen newspaper De Brug covered the news at length on Wednesday 23 September 2026. According to the museum, the building on the Oudestraat had been closed for major renovation work since 31 May 2025.

The reopening coincides with the exhibition Avercamp terug in Kampen (Avercamp Back in Kampen), devoted to the painters Hendrick and Barent Avercamp. It runs from 3 October 2026 to 10 January 2027, the museum says. The winter scenes painted by uncle and nephew have become scattered across the world. The museum says around fifteen paintings and fifty drawings will be on display. According to the museum, it is the first major temporary exhibition in the renovated building.

Colf Players on the Ice: Kampen comes first

The exhibition also features Hendrick Avercamp's Colf Players on the Ice, painted around 1625. On Monday 14 September 2026, the Rijksmuseum and the Mauritshuis announced that they had jointly acquired the painting. It is the first time the two museums have bought a work of art together, they say. According to the museums, the painting will be shown first in Kampen, Avercamp's home town. After that, it will hang alternately in the Mauritshuis in The Hague and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

With the purchase, the museums say, the painting returns to the Netherlands. It belonged to the collection of the English art dealer Edward Speelman and his wife Sally, and hung in the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.

Unlike his earlier, crowded winter landscapes, Avercamp zooms in here on a small group. Two gentlemen are playing a game of colf, while fishermen and passers-by look on. Colf is one of the oldest ball games in the Low Countries and a forerunner of golf.

Why this purchase matters: the Avercamps in Dutch public collections are almost all early works, the Rijksmuseum says. Colf Players on the Ice is a later work which, according to the museums, shows his mature style.

A town hall that looks out on the IJssel again

Since 2009 the museum has been housed in Kampen's old town hall. The display of the collection has not changed since that opening, the museum writes.

During the renovation, the museum removed the false walls in front of the windows. As a result, original features of the historic building are visible again, more daylight comes in and you look out over the IJssel. The river also appears frequently in the paintings in the collection, the museum says.

The route now begins in the Schepenzaal, the aldermen's hall dating from 1545. According to the museum, a platform lift makes the room accessible to wheelchair users and visitors with limited mobility. In the new permanent display, the museum combines historical pieces with contemporary art, it writes on its website. "With this renewed museum, we are bringing the town inside," director Nynke van der Wal tells De Brug.

The museum attracts around 22,000 visitors a year, it reported in March 2026. It aims to grow to more than 40,000 visitors by 2029.

Uncle and nephew on the ice

Hendrick Avercamp (1585–1634) was born in Amsterdam but grew up in Kampen and worked there for most of his life. He was deaf and was nicknamed de Stomme van Kampen ("the Mute of Kampen"). The Rijksmuseum calls him the father of the Dutch ice scene: he was the first painter to paint winter scenes almost exclusively.

Those winters were real, too. Avercamp lived during the Little Ice Age, which the Rijksmuseum describes as a period from around 1575 to 1625 with very harsh winters. His nephew Barent Avercamp also painted winter landscapes. The museum names him in the exhibition's subtitle as well: the 17th century through the eyes of Hendrick and Barent.

Alongside the fun on the ice, the museum says, the exhibition also shows the work of those who made their living around the water, from fishermen to merchants, all year round. It also points out places you can still recognise in today's Kampen.

For families, IJspret met Avercamp (Ice Fun with Avercamp) opens at the same time in the Voormalige Synagoge, the former synagogue that is the museum's other venue; it runs until 31 January 2027, the museum says.