four figures oversaw all art purchases for the museum, notably works of Hague and Amsterdam Impressionism and pieces by international contemporaries. The museum began actively acquiring art in 1930. In 1933, M.B.B. Nijkerk's collection of books came to the Stedelijk, which was later expanded to include aesthetic book design and typography. The Museum of Applied Art opened on the ground floor of the west wing on 15 December 1934. This collection included furniture, glass, pottery, and china, graphic design and posters, textiles, small sculptures and masks, batik, metalwork, and stained glass with an emphasis on Dutch work from around the turn of the century. In 1936, David Röell, who had previously worked at the Rijksmuseum and was secretary of the VVHK, took over as museum director. Röell appointed Willem Sandberg as the new curator in January 1938. Sandberg eventually took over as director of the museum in 1945. By 1962, the VVHK handed over most of its collection, including works by George Hendrik Breitner, Paul Cézanne, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet, Vincent van Gogh, and Johan Jongkind. Under the direction of Sandberg, the Stedelijk started a department of applied art in 1945 and a department of prints and drawings in 1954. At the start of 1950, the Stedelijk also began to present modern music and films. The annex known as the Sandberg Wing was built in 1954 to accommodate experimental art. By 1956, a reading room, print room, a museum restaurant and garden, and a new auditorium for film screenings and musical performances were added. Sandberg acquired a group of works by Russian artist Kazimir Malevich in 1958. In the same year, Sandberg began acquiring photography for the museum's collection; the Stedelijk was the first western European museum for modern art to collect photography. The collection includes seminal photographers of both the Dutch and international avant-garde in the interbellum period (such as Erwin Blumenfeld, László Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray), an extensive selection of post-war Dutch photographers (including Eva Besnyö, Ed van der Elsken and Cas Oorthuys), artist portraits, photojournalism, and autonomous fine art photography from the 1970s onward. During World War II, the Stedelijk collection and that of the Amsterdam Museum were transferred for safekeeping to a bunker in the sand-hills near Santpoort. Museum staff took turns keeping watch. Sandberg only just managed to evade arrest; in 1943, when a German search party was sent to apprehend him, Sandberg fled by