A bronze portrait of Marinus Coopmans

by  Mieke Derickx & Annemieke Klijn

Thanks to a gift by Menjel Coopmans, Maastricht University added a bronze portrait of his father Marinus Coopmans (1904-1982) to its art and heritage collection. Coopmans, born in Hoeven in the province of Brabant, studied economics in Tilburg. In 1936 he moved to Limburg to become a teacher of economics and statistics in Hoensbroek.

The bronze was made by his daughter-in-law Marie-Paul Geurts-Coopmans (1940-1997). She graduated from the Municipal Academy for Applied Arts in Maastricht and continued her education in sculpture at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht, under the direction of Professor Carosso. She graduated cum laude. Thanks to a sculptor award from the city of Maastricht, she received a grant to study sculpture further under the direction of Professor Wortruba at the Art Academy in Vienna. Frits Wortruba is considered one of the most important Austrian sculptors of the twentieth century and is seen as the artist who renewed the cultural ties between Austria and Europe after the Second World War.

As a sculptor she worked figuratively in the early years, but in the later years the images become more abstract. Inspired by the human figure, she clearly follows the abstract line and her images increasingly take on the character of plastic compositions.

The influences of Professor Wortruba's work are also noticeable here. Her abstract design language becomes more pronounced. Although the human body remains the starting point, her sculptures with cylinders, blocks, beams and cubes also evoke a free spatial architectural atmosphere.

What is the relation between Marinus Coopmans and Maastricht University? In 1962 he published Universitas Limburgensis, a brochure addressed as an open letter to the then minister of Education and Science, Jo Cals, a member of the Catholic Popular Party (KVP). Coopmans hoped to convince the minister to set up a university with a European profile in Limburg. The timing of his petition was perfect because right in that period the Dutch government was discussing whether the nationwide university system had to be expanded – and if so, where – in order to deal with quickly growing student numbers. Coopmans wrote his piece à titre personnel, even though he probably had been in touch about it with Henri Gelissen, to whom he dedicated the brochure. Gelissen was a well-known figure in Catholic circles in the Netherlands. Before the war this chemist had been minister of Economic Affairs for some time. After liberation he had set up the N.V. Industriebank in Limburg, to nurture the region’s economic climate. Later on, this bank would be integrated into LIOF, the regional development company of the Province of Limburg.

In his 1962 brochure, Coopmans argued that a new university in Limburg was necessary to be prepared for ‘tomorrow’s Europe’ – a united Europe. Such a university, in his view, would train students in addressing the international issues of the future. The Netherlands should ‘rise to’ the challenge of ‘the larger European configuration’, if not the ‘world economic system’. This implied that students needed to learn to read, listen, speak and think in ‘another language’ in order to comprehend the intentions of other countries. The new university, Coopmans proposed, would have to be a European university, and it had to be located in Maastricht. The author demonstrated his fondness for history by pointing to Charles IV, William the Silent and William I of the Netherlands, all of whom had established institutes of higher education fostering the cultural as well as the economic climate.

Because Limburg was desperately in need of economic incentives, according to Coopmans, he launched the idea of a Universitas Limburgensis: a Dutch university attended by a mix of Dutch students and students from abroad. It even seemed possible, he felt, to hire professors from abroad, but they would preferably have a position as adjunct professor only. As regards to the fields of study, Coopmans was thinking of curriculums in law, economics, physics and mathematics, public administration, accountancy, statistics and business administration.

The reviewer of his booklet in De Nieuwe Limburger commented that the argument was not sufficiently articulate. Although Coopmans wrote his brochure in a general, somewhat old-fashioned style indeed, it also reflected keen foresight, notably in its international ambition. This is true all the more when we compare his brochure with the report issued in 1959 by the Higher Education Study Committee (Studiecommissie Hoger Onderwijs), set up by the Limburg government. The authors of this report held a plea for establishing a Catholic atheneum illustre in Limburg, aimed at training students up to the bachelor level only. This more limited scope was perhaps motivated by the attempt not to interfere in the academic activities of Catholic University Nijmegen.