One Woman's Modern Art Journey

By Matthew Kangas

With "Van Gogh to Mondrian: Modern Art from the Kröller-Müller Museum" at the Seattle Art Museum this summer (May 29 - September 12), memories of SAM's only other big Van Gogh show are bound to be summoned up for many. I was nine when my mother brought my brother and me to Volunteer Park in 1958 to see "Vincent van Gogh: Paintings and Drawings." Those 84 paintings and 70 drawings were borrowed from the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam and included such masterpieces as The Potato Eaters, Vincent's Bedroom at Arles, and his last painting, Wheatfield with Crows.

The thrill of the new show is that it highlights the other van Goghs, 12 oils and 10 drawings, including several comparable masterpieces such as Café Terrace at Night (1888) and The Garden of the Asylum at St-Rémy (1889). Even better, these are just the tip of the iceberg in what is sure to be a major blockbuster show for SAM. Besides these works from the second-largest private van Gogh collection, there are also extraordinary modern pictures by Cubist masters Pablo Picasso (2), Juan Gris (3), and Fernand Léger (2), along with a clutch of seven canvases by Dutch Neo-Plastic giant Piet Mondrian and a scattering of gems by Post-Impressionists Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, not to mention Symbolist painter Odilon Redon's greatest work, The Cyclops (1914)

Considering that the best way to learn about art is by looking at it, "Van Gogh to Mondrian" is the perfect blend of education and entertainment, just as it was for the woman who assembled it all, Helene Kröller-Müller (1869 - 1939), an heiress whose father made a fortune in blast-furnace parts manufacturing and who encouraged his 19-year-old daughter to marry a young Dutchman, Anton Kröller, who happened to head the firm's Dutch office.

When one contemplates the great art collectors of all time, many of them were women. Isabella d'Este influenced Catherine de Medici, both of whom took a shine to Leonardo da Vinci. Louisine Havemeyer, the wife of the "Sugar Baron," Horace, luckily was the best friend of Mary Cassatt who gave her entrée to all the Impressionist greats from Manet and Degas onward. As the handsome catalog points out, Katherine Dreier and Peggy Guggenheim were the American counterparts to Helene Kröller-Müller, wealthy heiresses with advanced artistic taste, all of whom were instructed and influenced by an important art critic of their day, in Kröller-Müller's case, Hendrickus P. Bremmer. He not only had access to Signac's studio and others, but in one year alone, 1912, acted as an agent for her acquisition of 27 van Goghs, along with exquisite examples by Corot, Courbet and Daumier.

The young newlywed who was snubbed (because she was German-born) by her upper-class Rotterdam neighbors when Bremmer was teaching them private art history classes simply hired him away as her own private adviser. For the next 40 years, it was a non-stop shopping spree that covered much of modern art from Post-Impressionism, Symbolism, Fauvism, and Cubism to De Stijl, but also meant high-style furniture, prints, Asian antiques, and Gothic and Renaissance treasures by Tintoretto, El Greco and Lucas Cranach. All this ended up in an amazing building by Belgian architect Henry van de Velde, the Kröller-Müller Museum, in Otterlo, Netherlands. One year after it opened, Helene died at age 70. She had written years before that the "works will stand the test of time -- because I collect to give future generations that which I consider the best in life."

That said, Mrs. Kröller-Müller had her blind spots. She favored a minor Dutch abstractionist, Bart van der Leck, over Mondrian whom she cut off just as he was moving into his purest non-objective style. She rejected the German avant-garde entirely, which meant no Expressionism, Blue Rider or Die Brücke paintings. And even though she eventually settled on van de Velde, she toyed with many other great architects of the day, including the young Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Peter Behrens, and Hendrik Berlage. The museum, built at the height of the Depression, had to attain financial help from the Dutch government.

Such extravagant proclivities pale into insignificance, however, when compared to the riches on view at SAM this summer. Bearing in mind that the first thing the young bride collected was all-white Delftware (antique low-fire earthenware), her taste grew enormously over the years. True, there were periods when she had to cut back due to the financial vagaries of her father's (and ultimately her husband's) company, but, in general, as one historian put it, there were "seemingly inexhaustible funds available to her." She continued the 17th-century Dutch precedent of the grand merchant collectors and also foretold the adventurous avant-garde collecting of late-20th-century women connoisseurs like Seattle's own Virginia Wright, Jane Lang Davis and Mary Shirley.

Van Gogh to Mondrian:
Modern Art from the Kröller-Müller Museum
May 29 - Sept. 12, 2004
Seattle Art Museum

Organized by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta. In Seattle, the exhibition's presenting sponsor is Washington Mutual. Generous support provided by Microsoft Corporation and Seattle Mayor's Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, with major funding also provided by the Seattle Art Museum Supporters. Additional support provided by Contributors to the Annual Fund.

Pablo Picasso, Standing Nude 1907 - 1908, watercolor on paper 24 1/2 " x 18". Courtesy Seattle Art Museum.

Odilon Redon Cyclopes, ca. 1914 Oil on cardboard mounted on panel 26" x 20 3Ž4". Courtesy Seattle Art Museum.

Pablo Picasso, Portrait of a Woman (The Madrillenian) ca. 1901, oil on panel 20 1/2 x 13 inches. Courtesy Seattle Art Museum.

Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890), Self-Portrait, 1887. Oil on cardboard, 12 7/8" x 9 1/2". Courtesy Seattle Art Museum.

A big surprise is the fin-de-siècle Dutch Art Nouveau furniture commissioned for the Kröller-Müller's first home and hunting lodge. Examples of architectural drawings, watercolors and elevation studies for various completed and unfulfilled projects also enhance the overall experience for viewers.

Speaking of Art Nouveau, even though the Dutch examples of furniture and paintings are not well known, they provide a wonderful context for the moody van Goghs. After all, Mrs. Kröller-Müller must have had these works in mind when she described van Gogh as "so Dutch!"

With the grand story of modern art now largely at an end after a good 120-year run, it's important to remember that there is no one way of telling this fascinating tale. With the arrival of Helene Kröller-Müller's "other van Goghs" as well as her choice examples of Picasso, Seurat, early Mondrian and the spectacular Cyclops by Redon, viewers will realize how huge the entire undertaking of modern art was and how diverse and satisfying its achievements continue to be.

Matthew Kangas, frequent contributor to Art Guide Northwest, lectured at Virginia Commonwealth University and Indiana University this past winter. He also spoke on the history of art critics and public art in Seattle at the annual College Art Association conference held here in February. Copyright © Matthew Kangas, 2004