Academic portraits

The University of Groningen has an important collection of academic portraits, like many other universities in The Netherlands and Europe. They are exhibited in the Senate Room and Faculty Rooms at the Academy Building.

Faculty rooms: new portraits

The university is committed to expanding the collection with portraits of professors from contemporary artists. More than 100 portraits have been donated in the last seven years. The Senate Room is full and more recent portraits are now hung in the different Faculty Rooms at the Academy Building.

Senate chamber: oldest portraits

The oldest portraits in the Senate Room date from 1618. They include the first rectores magnifici and professors: Ubbo Emmius , Hermann Ravensberger, Cornelis Pijnacker and Nicolaus Mulerius.

Academy Building of 1850

At first unsuccessful attempts were made to get professors to pay for their own portraits. In 1850 the new Academy Building was opened and the senate decided then to open a portrait gallery featuring portraits of all the professors, which they each had to pay for out of their own pocket. Jan Ensing, a painter from Groningen (1819-1894), painted all nineteen professors in 1854.

This series formed the basis of the senate room gallery which was enlarged by works from other artists. Efforts were also made to find portraits of earlier professors. Professor Baart de la Faille donated a portrait of ­Ubbo Emmius in 1851. By 1857 twelve portraits of late professors had been donated by their heirs.

In truth, not every new professor donated a portrait and soon there were no more paintings of living professors in the gallery. Most of the newer portraits were painted posthumously, based on photographs. The Groningen painters Johannes H. Egenberger, Hinderikus Boss and Franciscus H. Bach painted the majority of these portraits.

In 1906 a fire burnt the Academy Building to the ground, but the portraits were saved. When the current Academy Building was opened in 1909 the portraits were hung once more in the senate room.

A number of beautiful paintings are displayed, such as the posthumous portrait of Wijbrand Adriaan Reiger by Franciscus H Bach, the portrait of Pieter Hendrik Schoute by Thérèse van Duyl-Schwartze (1852-1918), Antoon Gerard Roos by Johan Dijkstra (1896-1978) and Willem Hendrik Arisz by Jacob Bruijn (1906-1989).

Literature on the academy portraits

• R.E.O. Ekkart en J. Schuller tot Peursum-Meijer, Groninger academieportretten, catalogus van de portretten in het Academiegebouw en de Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit te Groningen (Groningen 1978).
• Jolanda Oosterheert, In vol ornaat. Vier eeuwen Groningse senaatsgalerij (Groningen 2009).