The museum for coming-of-age: about the early years of Piet Mondriaan

She saved the Mondriaan family’s former home from demolition, opened a gallery there, and succeeded in attracting artists and art lovers from across the country to Winterswijk. Starting Sunday, October 11, 2026, Museum Villa Mondriaan will highlight the story of Elizabeth Nijhuis-Wiggers. The exhibition “Elizabeth Nijhuis-Wiggers—Dedicated, Decisive and Determined” will be on view through April 4, 2027. In 1984, Elizabeth Nijhuis-Wiggers and her husband Jan purchased the former residence of the Mondriaan family. At the time, the building was in a state of serious disrepair. Yet Elizabeth saw its potential. A year later, she opened Galerie Het Mondriaanhuis in the renovated villa. For more than twenty-five years, she organized exhibitions of modern art there. Not everyone considered it obvious that she would do this in Winterswijk. Elizabeth, however, did not let herself be discouraged. She visited artists, toured studios, held conversations, and, over the years, built up an extensive network. Every six to eight weeks, she presents a new exhibition. Without subsidies, but with a great deal of personal dedication and support from her husband Jan, she manages to attract visitors from all over the Netherlands to the Achterhoek region. The new exhibition showcases who Elizabeth Nijhuis-Wiggers was as a gallery owner and how she made a name for herself in the Dutch art world from her base in Winterswijk. Photographs, newspaper articles, catalogs, and personal memories come together to tell the story. The exhibition also features works by artists to whom she provided a platform in her gallery, including Michel Seuphor, Hendrik Valk, Theo Wolvecamp, Marieloes Reek, Hartmut Eiing, Francine Schrikkema, Ger Meinema and Frida Holleman. The exhibition is inspired not only by the gallery’s history but also by Elizabeth’s pivotal role in preserving Villa Mondriaan. Together with Wim Scholtz and Vic Hulshof, she championed the villa’s eventual transformation into a museum. In 2013, that dream became a reality with the opening of Museum Villa Mondriaan. The history of Galerie Het Mondriaanhuis is thus also a history of encounters: between Elizabeth and artists, between art and the public, and between Winterswijk and the rest of the Netherlands.