PAN Amsterdam: A Dinner At The Millen House

The Millen House debuts at PAN Amsterdam with A Dinner at The Millen House: an intimate dining room where art and design come together

Amsterdam, July 2025 — The Millen House, a young Amsterdam-based gallery, makes its debut this year at PAN Amsterdam in the Walls and Cabinets section. Instead of a traditional booth, the gallery presents a curated dining room that evokes a homely atmosphere — a direct reflection of the architectural background of gallerist Niek Schoenmakers.

With a unique combination of one hundred years of art, selected through the personal eye of a collector, The Millen House brings a surprising mix of young talents and established names, both Dutch and international. The focus lies on drawing as a medium, complemented by sculpture and design objects. Each work tells its own story, with particular attention to overlooked artists and unexpected perspectives.

The dining room as concept

“In every home, the dining table is the beating heart: a place to share your day, listen to stories, welcome old friends, or meet new ones over dinner. Or think of the iconic dinners of Gala and Dalí where art and food merged into one. This is the feeling I want to convey as our debut at PAN.”

The presentation is staged as a dining room, with a table as anchor and meeting point. Between antique and contemporary glassware, flowers, and fruit bowls, artworks are displayed that invite conversation and discovery. The setting references 17th-century bacchanals but feels above all like an intimate dinner at a collector’s home. The table serves as a starting point to explore the walls of the booth.

Highlights include:

• Mart de Houwer (1931–1991): Shown at PAN for the first time, with monumental drawings from a 1970s series. Her delicate, hand-drawn lines are an example of fundamental art, telling the story of an overlooked Belgian master.

• Rudolf Bauer (1889–1953): Member of the German avant-garde circle around Der Sturm alongside Wassily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall, Paul Klee, and Franz Marc. On view is an intimate drawing created during his imprisonment in a Gestapo prison in 1937, when his “degenerate art” was persecuted by the Nazis. This rare piece reveals both the vulnerability and hope of the artist.

• Jean Tinguely (1925–1991): His kinetic drawing machine — the iconic Méta-Matic — challenged the traditional role of the artist by letting chance and movement produce art. The drawing presented is signed by Tinguely yet created by the machine, a fascinating paradox.

• Harry Bertoia (1915–1978): World-renowned as the designer of, among others, the Diamond Chair, but here The Millen House presents several of his works on paper: delicate line drawings inspired by nature, alongside a design sketch for a sculpture in Brussels.

• Ge Ba: Six rare textile collages from southwest China, dating 1950s–1970s, made by anonymous rural women. Created from scraps and rice glue, this textile art combines traditional techniques with a visual language reminiscent of the Western avant-garde. The fabrics capture the colors and patterns of everyday life in China before the Cultural Revolution. Thanks to the efforts of French collector François Dautresme, these unique works are gaining recognition as autonomous art.

• Imi Knoebel (1940–): A powerful mixed media work from 1989 with notable provenance: on long-term loan to the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht from 1992 to 2022. PAN marks the first time this iconic work is offered for sale at a fair.

• Marleen Kaptein: Her transparent, lightweight carbon-fiber sculptures create a poetic link to the line drawings in the booth. Specially for PAN, a unique chandelier hangs above the dining table, playing with light and space.

The presentation creates a dialogue between past and present, between male and female artists, and between art and design. With a mix including Maarten Baas, Verner Panton, Serge Poliakoff, Maria-Helena Vieira da Silva, François Morellet, Diana Bitar, and Clara Schweers, The Millen House invites both seasoned collectors and younger audiences to experience this “dinner encounter.”

Program

Around the theme of “dinner,” The Millen House organizes exclusive activities, table talks, and tastings during PAN, including a scent tasting.

Contact
Niek Schoenmakers
The Millen House
hello@themillenhouse.com
+31 6 22007186