Henri van Abbe

Henri Jacob van Abbe (Dutch pronunciation: [ɦɑ̃ːˈri ˈjaːkɔp fɑn ˈɑbə]; 8 January 1880 – 18 November 1940) was a Dutch tobacco industrialist and art collector. He is the founder of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven.

Henri Jacob van Abbe was born on 8 January 1880 in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

He was a cigar manufacturer in Eindhoven, and in 1900 he started a small cigar factory in Amsterdam which grew into a prosperous business. An avid art collector and lover of art, he founded the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven in 1936, which he gave a major donation to.

With Tinus van Bakel, a colleague in tobacco and art, he regularly traveled to Belgium in the 1930s to buy art. One of the places they visited (in 1936) was the artists' colony of Sint-Martens-Latem.

Van Abbe died on 18 November 1940 in Eindhoven.

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