Eva Bendien

Eva Bendien (8 January 1921 – 8 March 2000) was a Dutch art collector and art gallery owner.

Biography She was born in Arnhem as the daughter of an English teacher, and on her mother's side was the niece of the abstract painters Jacob Bendien and Paul Citroen. After a short period working as assistant for the director of the Royal Academy in The Hague, a position she obtained through her uncle Citroen, the war broke out.

Though her mother was Jewish, her father had become a born-again Christian and her mother did not practise her religion. Thus the first few years of the war were not difficult for her because she didn't wear a yellow star or have a "J" written in her passport. However her family was forced to go underground and Eva spent time at diverse underground addresses in Amsterdam, Bergen, Haarlem, Sneek, Boekelo, and Bornebroek, with the last few months spent in the "Verscholen dorp" a colony of earthen huts housing 86 people in the woods between Nunspeet and Vierhouten. Her parents were in a separate block and her father would visit after dark in the evenings to read Shakespeare. Her brother Jaap did not survive the war.

The archives have letters and receipts for early works by Anton Heyboer, Reinier Lucassen, Roger Raveel, Lucebert, Wessel Couzijn, Pierre Alechinsky, Jules Chapon, Corneille, Hugo Claus, Klaas Gubbels, Kees Okx, Pearl Perlmutter, Carel Visser and Karel Appel.