A. P. A. Vorenkamp (1898–1953)

A.P.A. (Alphonsus Petrus Antonius) Vorenkamp was born in Westerlee, The Netherlands. After attending gymnasium in Leeuwarden, he began studying law at Leiden University but then switched to art history. After graduation in 1926, he moved to the USA and joined the faculty of the Department of Art at Smith College in Massachusetts. His major fields of interest were the art of northern Europe, including the Dutch and Flemish masters, and decorative and graphic arts. During a sabbatical in 1933, he completed a doctoral degree the University of Leiden with a dissertation on the history of 17th-century Dutch still life. Just before the start of World War II, he again took a sabbatical leave to conduct research on Rembrandt, and was thus in The Netherlands during the German invasion in 1940. He managed to escape via Italy and board a ship back to the USA. During the war, he served in the U.S. Army, though he kept his Dutch nationality. In 1945, the Dutch government recruited him to serve with the Royal Dutch Army to identify and recover art works stolen by the Nazis during the war. From October 1945 to May 1946, he worked with the American authorities at the Art Collecting Point in Munich, Germany, where he successfully identified and retrieved many works of art for The Netherlands. As a reward for his efforts, he was knighted by the Queen of The Netherlands. He wrote the 1946 catalog for a traveling exhibition in the USA called Paintings Looted from Holland, Returned through the Efforts of the United States Forces. After another year at Smith College, he returned to his native land to become director of Museum Boymans in Rotterdam. In 1949, he moved to Groningen as director of the Museum van Oudheden voor de Provincie en Stad Groningen (Museum of Antiquities for the Province and City of Groningen).