Henri van Abbe

Henri Jacob van Abbe (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈɦɛnri ˈjaːkɔp fɑn ˈɑbə];^[a] 8 January 1880 – 18 November 1940) was a Dutch tobacco industrialist and art collector. He is the founder of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven.

Portrait of Henri van Abbe by Pieter van der Hem [nl] (1929)

Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven

Life

Henri Jacob van Abbe was born on 8 January 1880 in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

He was a cigar manufacturer in Eindhoven, and in 1900 he started a cigar factory in Amsterdam which grew into a prosperous business. An avid art collector and lover of art, he founded the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven in 1936, to which he gave a major donation.^[1][2]

With Tinus van Bakel, a colleague in tobacco and art, he regularly traveled to Belgium in the 1930s to buy art. One of the places they visited (in 1936) was the artists' colony of Sint-Martens-Latem.^[3]

Van Abbe died on 18 November 1940 in Eindhoven.

Notes

1. In isolation, van is pronounced [vɑn].