The initiative was set in motion by The Hague policy officer Hendrik Jan Reinink (1901–1979), Secretary-General of the Ministry of Education, Arts and Sciences from 1945 to 1955.

Partly due to the driving force of Eduard Reeser, such an institution was established in Rotterdam in a short period of time just after the war.

Since his appointment as director, Willy Hofman has been responsible for the Rotterdamse Schouwburg, the Luxor Theater and the municipal artists' studios.

The following year, Van der Staay and Martin Mooij, head of the letter department, took the initiative to Poetry International.

During a joint visit to the Poetry International Festival in London, they gained the necessary inspiration and contacts for a similar initiative in Rotterdam.

Twenty-three poets were guests, including the Polish Zbigniew Herbert, the French Eugène Guillevic and the Austrian Ernst Jandl.

Among the guests in later years were Wole Soyinka, Seamus Heaney, Czesław Miłosz, Joseph Brodsky and Tomas Tranströmer.

[7] The Lijnbaan Center presented experimental exhibitions on a broad spectrum of art, image and mass culture, where it wanted to appeal to a wide audience.

For example, Robin Page, the first-ever Fluxus artist, had an exhibition with his colonial humorous art there in early 1975, where he talked people in through a video message on the street.

In 1970, the Rotterdamse Kunststichting opened an arts lab in the renovated theater Lantaarn with a graphic workshop and its own video studio led by Rommert Boonstra.

The third initiative of the Rotterdamse Kunststichting under Adriaan van der Staay in the 1970s was the Film International festival, which was delegated to Huub Bals (1937–1988) to take the lead.

In 1974 the Professional Association of Visual Artists (Beroepsvereniging van Beeldende Kunstenaars BBK) in Rotterdam proposed to make this collection available through an art library.

[8] In the 1970s, the municipality started the Visual Arts Office (Bureau Beeldende Kunst), where individual artists could apply for grants.

[9] In the 1970s, the Rotterdamse Kunststichting had explicitly focused on internationalization and mass culture, which began in the field of poetry and films.

They published books on artists and designers such as Homero Aridjis, Toeti Heraty, Ajip Rosidi and Lotte Stam-Beese.

[10][11] The exhibition was curated by Jan van Adrichem for Boymans, Ove Lucas for the CBK, and Thomas Meyer zu Schlochtern for the RKS.

In 1993 the Rotterdamse Kunststichting initiated the Rotterdam Design Award with Christine de Baan as its founding director.

The Rotterdamse Kunststichting was thereby maintained as an independent legal entity and employer for the people of the office of the Rotterdam Council for Art and Culture.

Later presidents were Ludo Pieters until the 1980s, who previously as chairman of the Rotterdam art circle had been a regular member of the board, and George Brouwer from 1999 to 2012.