Published by Arnoldsche Art Publishers in 2026 and edited by Damian Skinner, Marzee presents itself as a sober, light-blue volume with a cloth-bound spine. At first glance, it can be described as a comprehensive book on the history of contemporary jewelry, a guide to understanding the field, or an ideal gift for young enthusiasts looking to identify key players in the discipline. It functions seamlessly as a reference for schools, kept within reach on classroom tables to show students the origins of almost everything they make today, while serving as a vital tool for future gallerists striving to understand how a commercial art space is built and sustained over decades.
More than anything else, however, this 255-page publication serves as the portrait of a woman—a biography constructed through diverse voices, critical perspectives, and deep personal reflections.
In political theory, a state of exception is defined as a space where common law is temporarily suspended to allow a brand-new order to emerge. When Galerie Marzee originally opened its doors in Nijmegen, Netherlands, in 1978, the field of contemporary jewelry was a young, anarchic discipline. Traditional norms of the conventional art market no longer applied, and alternative standards had not yet been written. Within that vast institutional gap, founder Marie-Josée van den Hout established an autonomous territory. Rather than following an existing market, she created her own, actively educating collectors and dictating the precise criteria that would separate her distinct vision from the surrounding chaos.
Ultimately, Skinner’s edited volume demonstrates that the "state of exception" known as Marzee, alongside the extraordinary collection housed within it, functions as van den Hout’s definitive self-portrait. The book acts as the founding charter of a unique territory where her discerning eye remains the sole authority.
The publication opens with an insightful foreword by Petra Hölscher, who currently holds a key position at Die Neue Sammlung in Munich. Hölscher’s text offers an intimate account, framing her own professional trajectory through her long-standing relationship with van den Hout. This bond has operated as a true compass—a dynamic defined by a warm distance that maintains both professional and personal closeness without ever sacrificing critical rigor. Their connection shifted and deepened through the work itself, specifically when Hölscher showed professional interest in Annelies Planteijdt, an artist for whom van den Hout holds a deep, unwavering devotion. When the museum’s institutional interest aligned directly with the gallery’s core passion, the relationship reached a new level of mutual validation, illustrating how long-term trust is successfully built between curators and gallerists.
The opening pages of the volume also showcase the unique architecture of the physical gallery—exhibiting that signature Dutch blend of clean design, austere materiality, and spatial efficiency where decoration is stripped away so that everything functions with purpose. Following the foreword, the closed drawers featured in the initial photographs appear to open, revealing the first part of van den Hout’s personal jewelry collection. The choice of paper throughout the publication is deliberate: a fine matte stock where readers can physically feel the cellulose without encountering the distraction of a forced texture. This specialized finish allows the showcased pieces to shine through their own intrinsic materiality, rendering their complex three-dimensionality almost tactile on the page.
Within the book, the works are organized thoughtfully by artist rather than by strict chronological year, arranged side by side for purely aesthetic reasons. They converse and coexist within the spreads just as they naturally do inside the physical gallery space. Van den Hout understands precisely why a piece by Dorothea Prühl sits in close proximity to one by Rudolf Kocéa. While readers do not necessarily need to know the explicit reason for every pairing, the presence of a master eye is evident throughout. Every piece is ordered according to an internal logic, complementing its neighbor to create a cohesive narrative. Notably, all the pieces are photographed and presented at the exact same scale—an exquisite editorial decision that is always appreciated in jewelry publications, as it permits viewers to grasp not only invisible conceptual relationships but also formal connections of scale.
Following this immersive visual section, Susan Cummins—founder of Art Jewelry Forum and a seasoned gallerist herself—provides essential contextual grounding. Her text performs a clever visual operation that mirrors the book’s macro-to-micro structural rhythm: tracing the arrival at the train station, the walk toward the building, and finally the journey through the three floors of the gallery itself. It is a compelling exercise to approach something as intimate as wearable art through a geographic lens, reinforcing the reality that visiting Galerie Marzee is fundamentally an experience of traveling to a specific destination simply to exist within its walls.
Once inside the building via Cummins’s narrative, readers are taken on a guided tour, opening physical drawers alongside van den Hout. The experience generates genuine intellectual excitement, driven by a shared, unspoken understanding of the works contained within. There is a distinct pleasure in observing the entirety of Onno Boekhoudt’s collection curated by van den Hout, positioned near contrasting works from the Padua School to showcase two different manifestations of the same artistic revolution. Cummins’s text is fundamental for grasping how taste is actively constructed and for understanding van den Hout’s uncompromising demand for material integrity. For Cummins, the history of this remarkable collection is entirely inseparable from the history of its founder—her persistent way of promoting, educating, and exercising the power to discern between genuine beauty and emptiness.
To fully understand this unique state of exception, the book turns back to its origins. Art historian and independent curator Flos Wildschut—whose 2023 essay on the gallerist remains one of the most intimate accounts written about her—provides a detailed map of van den Hout’s life, demonstrating that her authority is part of a broader legacy. Born into a distinguished family of goldsmiths, she grew up understanding both the heavy weight of tradition and the distinct sound of the workshop. Wildschut traces a clear timeline where personal life and professional career are never treated as separate entities; the gallery is framed not merely as a job, but as an entire way of living, where relationships, motherhood, and the physical spaces she inhabits are all shaped by the unstoppable drive of the institution.
This outcome was frequently forged in moments of professional crisis. When faced with the potential departure of her most commercial artists, van den Hout did not retreat; instead, she became more ambitious. She deliberately chose the more difficult path, opting to represent creators who did not fit neatly into the conventional rules of the mainstream market. This same unwavering firmness is evident in her historical refusal to relocate the gallery to Amsterdam. While outside observers viewed Nijmegen as a distant periphery, van den Hout recognized it as a vibrant center. By staying put, she subverted mainstream market logic, successfully forcing the international art world to travel directly to her door and proving that a clear, resolute vision can transform any location into a global destination. Yet, this stance is far from isolationist; being a gallerist is framed as an act of profound generosity—a method of sharing her unique vision with a community while honoring a deep sense of duty toward her artists.
As the publication progresses, iconic exhibitions such as Combs and Amulets are brought to light, revealing a subtle sense of humor shared between van den Hout and her makers, while offering a rare opportunity to step away from the traditional solemnity often associated with conceptual jewelry. Interspersed between blocks of high-quality images are silver vessels—including bowls, cups, and chalices—alongside archival photographs and texts documenting Marzee’s experimental programming, social events, symposiums, and ambitious site-specific projects.
The final text, penned by Lizzie Atkins—a London-based jeweler, writer, and long-time collaborator of Galerie Marzee since 2002—covers the gallery’s definitive era from 1995 to 2025. In this chapter, the city of Nijmegen gazes across the Waal River toward the gallery, where every piece behind the glass walls seems to have finally discovered its ideal setting. Atkins highlights key institutional milestones, including the annual Marzee Graduate Show, which invites the most promising jewelry graduates from schools around the world to present their work, and the prestigious Marzee Prize, awarded to the most outstanding participants. Together, these enduring initiatives demonstrate that van den Hout is not merely a collector preserving the past, but an active champion willing to take risks on the future. For countless emerging graduates, the Marzee Graduate Show remains the premier milestone they look forward to, marking the true beginning of their professional careers.
Ultimately, Damian Skinner’s edited volume stands as a masterclass in belief. It serves as an invaluable tool for younger generations of makers and thinkers, offering a rare sense of certainty: if an individual has believed in the discipline of contemporary jewelry with such fierce devotion and uncompromising love, it becomes impossible not to believe in it oneself. Part self-portrait, part territory of absolute clarity, and part gesture of profound gratitude, Marzee makes it clear that the gallery is much more than a physical address in the Netherlands. It represents a state of mind where the best of contemporary jewelry is always yet to come.
