Kröller-Müller Museum
The Kröller-Müller Museum is an art museum near the village of Otterlo in the Netherlands , northwest of Arnhem . The museum owns 87 paintings by Vincent van Gogh alone , making it the second largest Van Gogh collection in the world after the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam . In addition to important paintings by other artists, the Kröller-Müller Museum is also known for its large sculpture garden .
history
The museum goes back to the art collection of the German-born Helene Kröller-Müller (1869–1939). Born in Horst near Essen , Helene Müller was the daughter of a steel industrialist who also had business relationships in the Netherlands through his trading company. In 1888 she married Anton Kröller (1862–1941), the younger brother of the head of the Rotterdam office of the shipping company Wm. H. Müller & Co., and moved to The Hague . From 1907 she attended "lessons on art history" from the renowned art historian Hendricus Petrus Bremmer . He remained her most important advisor in artistic matters throughout her life and provided the essential impetus for building up the collection.
The first major acquisitions in 1909 were three works by Vincent van Gogh: Sunflowers , The Sower and Still Life with Bottle and Lemon . Ms. Kröller-Müller's collection grew in a short time, not only buying from dealers in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and France, but also, for example from Paul Signac , directly in the artist's studios. During a stay in Florence in 1910, in view of the Medici heritage, she first thought of showing her collection to the public in her own house.
She opened her first private museum in the Lange Voorhout 1 house in The Hague. For a new building, there were long discussions with various architects about drafts, none of which were implemented. Only after the collection, which now consists of over 4,000 drawings, 275 sculptures and several hundred paintings, came into the possession of the Dutch state as a gift in 1935, the core of today's museum building east of Otterlo was created as a temporary measure. The original collection was only slightly expanded after the collector's death. In 1961, with the inauguration of a sculpture park, a new area of activity was created for the museum.
building
The first architect the couple commissioned to plan a building for the collection was Peter Behrens . In 1911 he designed the Ellenwoude country house in Wassenaar , which was designed as a residential building with a large gallery wing . This cubic structure looked representative and had a clear, classic shape. After the submitted drawings did not convince Ms. Kröller-Müller, a model made of wood and canvas in original size was created on the building site, which, however, led to a change of architect.
Now the Behrens employee Ludwig Mies van der Rohe received the order for the construction of Ellenwoude , whereby at the insistence of the consultant HP Bremmer, Hendrik Petrus Berlage was also asked to submit drafts. Both architects presented their designs in 1912 and van der Rohe's design was also built as a full-size model. However, both designs were never implemented. While the couple separated from Mies van der Rohe, Berlage was given their own office above the museum rooms from Ms. Kröller-Müller in The Hague.
After purchasing the Hoge Veluwe in the province of Gelderland as a hunting and riding area for the Kröller-Müllers, the couple decided to build two new buildings: a hunting lodge and a short distance "near the French mountain" a separate museum building, which both Berlage should design . The Jachthuis Sint Hubertus (Hunting Lodge St. Hubertus) was built in 1914, but could not be completed until 1920 due to the First World War and the associated shortage of materials. From 1916 Berlage worked on the drafts for the museum to be built. Shortly afterwards there was a falling out between the architect and the collector, who thereupon commissioned Henry van de Velde with the designs in 1919 . He had already built a highly regarded museum for the collector Karl Ernst Osthaus in Hagen .
Van de Velde's design for the Kröller-Müllers was well received by the collector. Construction, estimated at 6 million guilders, began in 1921. A year later, when the substructure had already been completed, the Kröller-Müller couple stopped building because of the international recession and the associated economic difficulties. This building was never finished.
The hunting lodge and the entire area of the Hoge Veluwe were transferred to a foundation in 1935, while the art collection was given to the Dutch state. This donation was made on the condition that a museum for the art collection was to be built in the area of the Hoge Veluwe under the direction of the architect van de Velde within five years. Not at the original location, but in a wooded area a little further south, a temporary arrangement designed by van de Velde was built as a “transitional museum” between 1937 and 1938 as a job creation measure by the government. This simple structure is the core of the museum to this day and houses the collection. The Dutch architect Wim G. Quist designed an extension from 1972–1977. Here are rooms for temporary exhibitions and the museum café.
collection
The core of the museum collection is made up of the paintings and drawings compiled by Helene Kröller-Müller with the help of HP Bremmer between 1908 and 1922, with the extensive holdings of works by Vincent van Gogh forming a highlight. Ms. Kröller-Müller's collection consists predominantly of works of art that were created during her own life and at that time did not yet find general recognition or were judged negatively by art critics. With the purchase of a first Cubist painting by Juan Gris in 1913, the collection developed into one of the first important modern art collections in the world.
In her book Reflections on Problems in the Development of Modern Painting , published in 1925, the collector explained that she wanted to present the overall impression of developments in painting. For this reason, Helene Kröller-Müller also acquired ancient Egyptian, Chinese, Japanese, Siamese, Javanese and Greek sculptures and ceramics as well as almost 80 paintings from the 15th to 17th centuries. Examples of these paintings are Venus and Armor by Hans Baldung Grien , Venus and Armor as a honey thief by Lucas Cranach the Elder , The Adoration of the Magi from the Circle of Giovanni di Paolo , a portrait of the wife of Westerbug by Bartholomäus Bruyn the Elder , The Breakfast by Floris van Schooten and The Smoker by Jan Steen .
The museum has a larger selection of works from French realism. These include, by Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot , the landscape paintings prospect of Soissons , of Gustave Courbet , the portrait of the woman Jolicler by Henri Fantin-Latour , a still life with flower pot, pears and pomegranates of Jean-François Millet , a bread woman and Adolphe Joseph Monticelli a Flower arrangement . At the same time, the Dutch painters Matthijs Maris with Die Spinnerin and Johan Barthold Jongkind can be seen with a fishing boat on the beach in the museum.
At the beginning of the collection of modern painting are works of impressionism . Édouard Manet's early work Portrait of a Man from 1860 forms the beginning. The museum shows the painter's boat by Claude Monet (which the artist had built so that he could paint the landscape directly in nature from the water). There is also a portrait of Guurtje Van de Stadt by the same painter . Two works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir can also be seen. In addition to a small oil sketch The Café , the museum has one of the artist's most important works with the life-size depiction of the clown . The works Waldrand by Paul Gauguin and Der Weg am See by Paul Cézanne follow in the footsteps of Impressionism .
The important group of works with works by Vincent van Gogh encompasses all of the artist's creative phases. Loom with weaver , bird's nests and a version of The Potato Eaters still date from the Dutch period . The Moulin de la Galette , pasture land and interior of a restaurant are owned by the museum from the painter's Parisian period, which was influenced by impressionism . The most famous work in the Kröller-Müller Museum is a version of the café terrace in the evening from the time of Van Gogh's stay in Arles. From that time, the museum also has a self-portrait , to look at Les Saintes-Maries , hay stack in Provence , osier with Setting Sun , a version of La Berceuse and Still Life with Drawing Board and onions . Cornfields with mowers and sun and grass and tree trunks belonged to the time in St. Rémy , while landscape with trees is an example of his work in Auvers. In addition to numerous other paintings, the museum also has an extensive collection of drawings by the artist, which are repeatedly shown in special exhibitions.
Pointillism , which developed in parallel, can also be seen in the museum with the most important artists. By Georges Seurat , The Port of Honfleur , The Chahut , The Gravelines Canal and Sunday in Port-en-Bessin are in the museum. The family in an orchard by Théo van Rysselberghe and The Breakfast by Paul Signac can also be seen . Examples of symbolism painting are April by Maurice Denis , The Cyclops by Odilon Redon or The Fool's Revenge Hop-Frog by James Ensor . Paintings by Dutch artists from the turn of the century in the museum are Madonna in the Tulip Country by Johan Thorn-Prikker and The Sea by Jan Toorop .
Pablo Picasso's picture The Madriderin from 1901 marks the beginning of work from the 20th century. This picture, which was still influenced by older painting styles, is in contrast to the gouache Standing Nude , which was influenced by African art and which suggests Cubism. Cubism, particularly valued by Helene Kröller-Müller, can be seen in the museum with works by all the important representatives of this style. By Pablo Picasso there is the painting The violin , Juan Gris Still Life with oil lamp , collage with fruit bowl and carafe and Still Life with Jug and lemon as well as Fernand Léger Three naked in a forest and the typographer . At first, Mrs. Kröller-Müller was just as enthusiastic about Piet Mondrian , whose works Composition XI , Composition in Line and Color , Composition No. 10 and Composition in Diamond Shape are in the collection. Mondrian's turn to abstraction, on the other hand, was not understood by the collector and works by other artists of this art direction, such as Wassily Kandinsky , were not included in the collection. Other developments such as Expressionism and Surrealism also found no favor with the collector and are now absent from the museum. On the other hand, Helene Kröller-Müller was a great sponsor of Bart van der Leck , of whom the museum has 42 paintings and around 400 drawings.
The donation of Helene Kröller-Müller's collection to the Dutch state was tied to numerous conditions, including not only the establishment of a museum, but also the permanent exhibition of the works and regulations for the care and purchase of further works. After the collector's death, only a few new paintings came to the museum. The collection does not claim to provide a comprehensive overview of art history, but rather specializes in specific epochs.
After the Second World War, a new focus arose with the collection of contemporary sculptures and object art. Building on individual non-European sculptures from the Kröller-Müller collection, the museum shows small sculptures, sculptures, installations and objects from a wide variety of trends since the beginning of the 20th century. On display are Forme uniche della continuità nello spazio by Umberto Boccioni , EOS IX by Jean Tinguely , Sailor with guitar by Jacques Lipchitz , The Prayer by Julio González , five smaller sculptures by Hans Arp , Raumkomposition 4 by Katarzyna Kobro and Structurist Relief by Charles Biederman . You can also see the torso: Clementius by Ossip Zadkine and several works by Barbara Hepworth . Louise Nevelson can be seen in the museum with the work Heavenly Cathedral III and the museum owns the work Henge on Threshold (Meditation on the year 1960) by Carl Andre . The collection also shows Relief R 71-4 by Jan Schoonhoven , Relief: Klare Relationen by Jesús Rafael Soto , Sphère-trame by François Morellet and an untitled brass work by Donald Judd . Other well-known artists from the second half of the 20th century are Christo with a work called Empaquetage , Mario Merz with the work Prehistoric Wind from Frozen Mountains , Richard Long with the installation Stone Line and Dan Flavin with the light sculpture Quietly to the Memory of Mia Visser .
This section of the museum is supplemented by a large number of drawings, some of which the sculptors made as preliminary work for the sculptures or which represent drafts for works that were not executed. These include works by Alberto Giacometti , Claes Oldenburg , Richard Serra , Christo and Panamarenko .
Sculpture park
Helene Kröller-Müller had the first sculpture set up in the park of the Hoge Veluwe as early as 1915. A monument to Christiaan de Wet by the sculptor Joseph Mendes da Costa was erected in the north of the site . The models for today's sculpture park are the sculpture exhibitions in London's Battersea Park since 1949 , the exhibitions in Middelheim Park in Antwerp since 1950 and the open-air exhibitions in Sonsbeek near Arnhem, a few kilometers from the Kröller-Müller Museum, since 1954. In 1961, under the direction of JTP Bijhouwer, the first section of today's sculpture park at the Kröller-Müller Museum was created , which has now grown to over twenty-five hectares.
Two sculptures of the classical modern form the beginning of the work in the outdoor area. In addition to the bronze casting woman in squat position by Auguste Rodin and the lead cast is the air of Aristide Maillol . The museum by Chaim Lipchitz and Barbara Hepworth owns several bronze works in the sculpture park. The work by Mark di Suvero called K-Pieces and the work by Richard Serra called Spin Out for Robert Smithson is made of iron girders and consists of three steel plates and frames the entrance to a small valley of the site. The installation Concetto spaziale nature by Lucio Fontana , consisting of five bronze spheres , can be seen as well as the steel work Reel I by Phillip King and the column by André Volten . The works Wandering rocks: dud, slide, crocus, shaft, smohawk by Tony Smith and Palisade by Evert Strobos are made from the same material . The museum was able to acquire the oversized, over eleven meter high trowel from Claes Oldenburg directly from the sculpture exhibition in Arnheim-Sonsbeek . In addition, the museum owns works by Kenneth Snelson , Cornelius Rogge , David van de Kop , Fritz Wotruba and Joep van Lieshout . One of the most famous works in the park is the 20 × 30 meter walk-in concrete sculpture Jardin d'émail by Jean Dubuffet . Outside the actual sculpture park, near the foundations of the museum building originally planned by van de Velde, there is Henry Moore's sculpture group Three Standing Motifs, No. 1, 2, 7 .
Exhibited works
Édouard Manet:
Portrait of a Man
Pierre-Auguste Renoir:
The Clown
Vincent van Gogh:
weaver at the loom
Vincent van Gogh:
La Berceuse (Augustine Roulin)
Vincent van Gogh:
Café terrace at night
Georges Seurat:
Can-Can (Le Chahut)
Odilon Redon:
The Cyclops
Barbara Hepworth:
Sphere with Inner Form
literature
- Eva Rovers: Collecting for the ages. Helene Kröller-Müller: the most important Van Gogh collector in the world. Athena-Verlag, Oberhausen 2016, ISBN 978-3-89896-630-6 .
- Kröller-Müller Museum (Ed.): Kröller-Müller Museum. German edition. Otterlo 2015, ISBN 978-90-73313-40-8 .
- Marianne Brouwer: Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller. Amsterdam 1992, ISBN 90-70024-71-3 .
- RWD Oxenaar: Kröller-Müller: The first hundred years. Haarlem (Netherlands) 1989, ISBN 90-70024-53-5 .
- Gabriele Kreusch (German translation): Kröller-Müller Museum. Haarlem (Netherlands) 1977, ISBN 90-70024-05-5 .
- Unauthorized: selection of paintings from the Kröller-Müller Reichsmuseum in the De Hoge Veluwe National Park. Otterlo (Netherlands) 1962.
Web links
Coordinates: 52 ° 5 '45.4 " N , 5 ° 49' 0.9" E