Helene Kröller-Müller
Helene Kröller-Müller | |
|---|---|
 Helene Müller and Anton Kröller, c. 1888 | |
| Born | Helene Emma Laura Juliane Müller 11 February 1869 Essen, Germany |
| Died | 14 December 1939 (aged 70) Otterlo, Netherlands |
| Occupation(s) | Art collector and philanthropist |
| Spouse | Anton Kröller |
Helene Emma Laura Juliane Kröller-Müller (German pronunciation: [heˈleːnə ˈkʁœlɐ ˈmʏlɐ]; née Müller; 11 February 1869 – 14 December 1939)[1] was a German art collector. She was one of the first European women to put together a major art collection. She is credited with being one of the first collectors to recognise the genius of Vincent van Gogh. Her entire collection was eventually sold to the Dutch government, along with her and her husband, Anton Kröller's, large forested country estate. Today it is the Kröller-Müller Museum and sculpture garden and Hoge Veluwe National Park, one of the largest national parks in the Netherlands.[2]
Life and career
[edit]Helene Emma Laura Juliane Müller was born in Essen-Horst, Essen, into a wealthy industrialist family. Her father, Wilhelm Müller, owned Wm. H. Müller & Co., a prosperous supplier of raw materials to the mining and steel industries.[3]
She studied under Henk Bremmer in 1906–1907. As she was one of the wealthiest women in the Netherlands at the time, Bremmer recommended that she form an art collection. In 1907, she began her collection with the painting Train in a Landscape by Paul Gabriël. Subsequently, Helene Kröller-Müller became an avid art collector, and one of the first people to recognise the genius of Vincent van Gogh. She eventually amassed more than 90 van Gogh paintings and 185 drawings, one of the world's largest collections of the artist's work, second only to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. She also bought more than 400 works by Dutch artist Bart van der Leck, but his popularity did not take off like van Gogh's.[4]
Kröller-Müller also collected works by modern artists, such as Picasso, Georges Braque, Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Fernand Léger, Diego Rivera, Juan Gris, Piet Mondrian, Gino Severini, Joseph Csaky, Auguste Herbin, Georges Valmier, María Blanchard, Léopold Survage and Tobeen. However, Bremmer advised her not to buy A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat, which turned out to be an important icon of 20th-century art. She did purchase however Le Chahut by Seurat, another icon in the history of modern art.[5] Also, she steered away from artists of her native Germany, whose work she found "insufficiently authoritative."[4]
On a trip to Florence in June 1910, she conceived the idea of creating a museum-house.[3] From 1913 onwards parts of her collection were open to the public; until the mid-1930s her exhibition hall in The Hague was one of the very rare places where one could see more than a few works of modern art.[6] In 1928, Anton and Helene created the Kröller-Müller Foundation to protect the collection and the estates. In 1935, they donated to the Dutch people their entire collection totaling approximately 12,000 objects, on condition that a large museum be built in the gardens of her park.[7] Held in the care of the Dutch government, the Kröller-Müller Museum was opened in 1938.[8]
The Kröller-Müller Museum is nestled in their 75-acre (300,000 m2) forested country estate, today the largest national park in the Netherlands, the Hoge Veluwe National Park near the town of Otterlo and the city of Arnhem. A lavish art gallery was planned near their iconic lakeside Jachthuis Sint Hubertus hunting lodge and landscape statue of their close personal friend, the South African Boer General Christian de Wet on the estate.[9] Due to threat of war the plans were never implemented in their lifetime but once the war was over a large forest sculpture garden and understated open exhibition extension was opened, housing statues by Rodin and the second largest collection of van Gogh paintings in the world, including the famous Sunflowers.[10]
References
[edit]- ^ "From a merchant family". Kröller-Müller Museum. Retrieved 8 February 2020.
- ^ "DE HOGE VELUWE NATIONAL PARK". Kröller Müller. 26 October 2022.
- ^ a b Joshua Levine (21 May 2009), The Vision Quest of Helene Kroller-Muller Forbes magazine.
- ^ a b Sheila Farr (23 May 2004) How a museum founder helped turn van Gogh into an international icon The Seattle Times.
- ^ Catalogus van de schilderijen verzameling van Mevrouw H. Kröller-Müller, Samensteller H.P. Bremmer, Published 1921 in 'S-Gravenhage (in Dutch)
- ^ Helene Kröller-Müller and the breakthrough of modern art University of Groningen – Institute of Biography.
- ^ Alan Riding (12 March 2003), Glimpses Into van Gogh's Imagination; Two Dutch Museums Offer Fresh Angles on a Favorite Son The New York Times.
- ^ "Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller". krollermuller.nl. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
- ^ "Art, architecture, and nature — Park Hoge Veluwe". www.hogeveluwe.nl. Retrieved 25 August 2015.
- ^ Wolfe, Shira (26 December 2019). "Kröller-Müller Museum". Artland Magazine. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
Further reading
[edit]- Kröller-Müller State Museum, Otterlo. Netherlands: Kröller-Müller State Museum, 1973.
- Rovers, Eva. De eeuwigheid verzameld: Helene Kröller-Müller 1869–1939. Prometheus Bv Vassallucci, Uitgeverij 2010. ISBN 978-9035135512
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