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Frans Hals Museum and De Hallen Haarlem Have Become One

The Frans Hals Museum and De Hallen Haarlem, the museum for contemporary and modern art in Haarlem, are moving forward as one museum in two locations (Hof and Hal) under the name Frans Hals Museum. On 29 March the two museums joined in a ‘marriage’ in Haarlem’s Town Hall. The revamped museum has a new house style and a light-hearted, informative website. The revamped Frans Hals Museum opened on 30 March with the experimental collection exhibition Rendezvous with Frans Hals.

From the Frans Hals Museum, 29 March 2018

The revamped Frans Hals Museum is a meeting place where different art forms, ideas and visitors encounter one another, sparking surprising discoveries. In a nutshell: look differently, see more. The new museum presents three flavors: old art, contemporary art and a stimulating mixture of both (fusion). The starting point is the connection of art through the ages. Works of art from different periods are shown together; brushstrokes beside pixels. Or Golden Age paintings with a contemporary interpretation.

‘The new Frans Hals Museum wants to think like an art historian – and like an artist, transcending the boundaries of time and space. It is high-profile and worldly, and at the same time hospitable and visible to visitors and local residents,’ explained director Ann Demeester.

Blockbuster exhibition

In the autumn of 2018 the museum is staging a blockbuster exhibition, Frans Hals and the Moderns: Hals Meets Manet, Singer Sargent and Van Gogh, reflecting the focus on old and new in the new programming. This exhibition spotlights Hals’s impact on the trail-blazing painters of the nineteenth century.

Upcoming renovation

The museum aims to be approachable and accessible to national and international visitors and to the residents of Haarlem by keeping the doors of both buildings open as much as possible and making public areas like the museum café and the museum shop more attractive for young and old alike. The public areas in both locations – Hal in the Grote Markt, and Hof in Groot Heiligland – will be remodeled and renovated in the future.

Symbolizing the marriage between Hof and Hal
Image: Frans Hals Museum