It is our aim to organize a presentation at least once a year that can compare with an exhibition space in one of the major Dutch museums. We want to present acclaimed names in a configuration which produces unexpected and exciting cross-connections – a candy store for the aficionado and the museum director alike.

This edition of First Choice focusses on two movements: Pop art and Minimal art. Of course, this means that a lot of the works came from America, a provenance which nowadays is often considered as rather questionable, but I can assure you that there is nothing fake about the works on show.

We are proud to present three original Pop art masterpieces, something which is quite rare in the Netherlands. A Seascape (a collage of plastic and magna) from 1965 by Roy Lichtenstein has a certain captivating playfulness and is full of references. Recently, the Lichtenstein Foundation examined the work in our gallery. It was top of their search list because although it was well-documented (in the archives of Leo Castelli), until now, its location was unknown. The Lichtenstein Foundation described it as one of the most striking works from the Seascape series.

Similarly exciting and perhaps even more rare is a painting from 1970 by Nicholas Krushenick. Although his abstract visual language doesn’t exactly have much in common with Pop art’s idiom, his bright color scheme, clean forms, and manifest ambiguities definitely refer to popular visual culture. For a long time he was the dark horse of the first generation of Pop artists, but that has changed in recent years. An appealing landscape by John Wesley completes our Pop art trio.

Minimal art has always featured in our collection. The three paintings from the early 1970s by Tadaaki Kuwayama in themselves form a miniature exhibition. Last year we introduced the work of this authentic minimalist who challenged classic aesthetic principles with his radical, impersonal, and systematic art. The works of Richard Serra and Tomas Rajlich that are also on show are no less radical. The biggest surprise, however, is still a secret; you will just have to come and discover it for yourself on June 2.