CODART, Dutch and Flemish art in museums worldwide

Van Gogh to Mondrian: modern art from the Kröller-Müller Museum

Exhibition: 29 May - 12 September 2004

Organizing museums

Atlanta, High Museum of Art and Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum

Curators

David Brennerman, Piet de Jonge and Susan Rosenberg

From the museum website

Seventy-five masterpieces of modern painting and sculpture from one of Holland’s premier museums will travel to the Seattle Art Museum. Van Gogh to Mondrian features major works by Georges Seurat, Pablo Picasso, Ferdinand Léger, Piet Mondrian, and Vincent van Gogh, many never previously exhibited in the United States. Jointly organized by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, The Netherlands, Van Gogh to Mondrian will travel to only two venues in the United States. Following the exhibit’s presentation in Seattle, it will be on view at the High Museum from October 16, 2004, through January 9, 2005.

The daughter of a German industrialist, Helene Kröller-Müller and her husband, Anton Kröller, began collecting modern art in 1906, inspired by the lectures of H.P. Bremmer, a dealer and ardent advocate of modern art in Holland. Attracted to the work of Vincent van Gogh, whose importance at the time was just being recognized, Mrs. Kröller-Müller created one of the largest private collections of van Gogh’s work in the world outside of the Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam). Van Gogh to Mondrian will include twelve paintings by Vincent van Gogh and drawings by the artist from every period of his career. Through a carefully chosen selection of early modern paintings, sculptures, and design objects, the exhibition tells the remarkable story of the formation of the Kröller-Müller Museum—from its beginnings at the turn of the twentieth century to its transformation into a public museum that opened in 1938 in a magnificent modern building designed by Belgian architect Henry van de Velde.

Catalogue

David Brennerman and Piet de Jonge, with essays by Marek Wieczorek, Wim de Witt and Nancy Troy, Van Gogh to Mondrian: modern art from the Kröller-Müller Museum, Atlanta (High Museum of Art) 2004. ISBN 1-93254-301-5.

Other venue

Atlanta, High Museum of Art (16 October 2004 – 9 January 2005)