The Museum David and Alice Van Buuren (french: Musée Alice et David Van Buuren, nl, Museum David en Alice Van Buuren) is a private house, now a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

, built from 1924 to 1928 for banker and art collector David Van Buuren and his wife Alice in

Uccle Uccle () or Ukkel () is one of the 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. In common with all of Brussels' municipalities, it is legally bilingual (French–Dutch). It is generally considered an affluent area of the city an ...

, a municipality of

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

, Belgium. The house was decorated by David and Alice as a '' total work of art'' to present their art collection in a rich

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

interior. The house is surrounded by gardens designed by

Jules Buyssens Jules Buyssens (1872-1958) was a noted Belgian landscape architect. He served as head of the Brussels parks department, and was gardener-in-chief for the 1935 Belgian centennial exposition. Selected gardens * Léonardsau Park, Obernai, France * ...

in 1925 and René Pechère in 1968 and 1970. The private house became a museum in 1975 according to the testament of Alice Van Buuren. It was declared a

National Heritage Site A national heritage site is a heritage site having a value that has been registered by a governmental agency as being of national importance to the cultural heritage or history of that country. Usually such sites are listed in a heritage registe ...

in 2001.

History

David Van Buuren (1886–1955) was born into a Jewish family in Gouda, Netherlands. He settled in Brussels in 1909 to become an important private banker. He married the Belgian Alice Piette (1890–1973) in 1922. David Van Buuren asked his nephew and architect Johan Franco to start working on the plan of his future house in Brussels. From 1924 to 1928, the Van Buurens commissioned the Belgian architects Léon Govaerts and Alexis Van Vaerenbergh to build their house on Léo Errera Avenue in

following Franco's sketches. The outdoor architecture is typical of the

Amsterdam School The Amsterdam School (Dutch: ''Amsterdamse School'') is a style of architecture that arose from 1910 through about 1930 in the Netherlands. The Amsterdam School movement is part of international Expressionist architecture, sometimes linked ...

, while its

interior was decorated by Belgian, French and Dutch designers with rare furniture, carpets and stained-glass windows. From 1928 to 1970, the Van Buurens hosted people such as

Raoul Dufy Raoul Dufy (; 3 June 1877 – 23 March 1953) was a French Fauvist painter. He developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramics and textile as well as decorative schemes for public buildings. He is noted ...

Jacques Prévert Jacques Prévert (; 4 February 1900 – 11 April 1977) was a French poet and screenwriter. His poems became and remain popular in the French-speaking world, particularly in schools. His best-regarded films formed part of the poetic realist moveme ...

René Lalique René Jules Lalique (6 April 1860 – 1 May 1945) was a French jeweller, medallist, and glass designer known for his creations of glass art, perfume bottles, vases, jewellery, chandeliers, clocks, and automobile hood ornaments. Life Lalique' ...

Sergei Diaghilev Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; rus, Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, , sʲɪˈrɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf; 19 August 1929), usually referred to outside Russia as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, pa ...

, Erik Satie,

René Magritte René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and bound ...

David Ben-Gurion David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Adopting the nam ...

. The private house became a museum in 1975 according to the testament of Alice Van Buuren.

Collections

Fall of Icarus - Brueghel -Museum van Buuren

David Van Buuren decorated his house with paintings from

James Ensor James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor (13 April 1860 – 19 November 1949) was a Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for most of his life. He was associated with the artistic g ...

Joachim Patinir Joachim Patinir, also called Patenier (c. 1480 – 5 October 1524), was a Flemish Renaissance painter of history and landscape subjects. He was Flemish, from the area of modern Wallonia, but worked in Antwerp, then the centre of the art market ...

, Pieter Bruegel the Elder,

Hercules Seghers Hercules Pieterszoon Seghers or Segers ( 1589 – 1638) was a Dutch painter and printmaker of the Dutch Golden Age. Segers is in fact the more common form in contemporary documents, and was used by the painter himself (modern use is about equall ...

Pieter Jansz Saenredam Pieter Jansz. Saenredam (9 June 1597 – buried 31 May 1665) was a painter of the Dutch Golden Age, known for his distinctive paintings of whitewashed church interiors such as ''Interior of St Bavo's Church in Haarlem'' and '' Interior of the S ...

Tsuguharu Foujita was a Japanese–French painter and printmaker born in Tokyo, Japan, who applied Japanese ink techniques to Western style paintings. At the height of his fame in Paris, during the 1920s, he was known for his portraits of nudes using an opalescen ...

Kees van Dongen Cornelis Theodorus Maria "Kees" van Dongen (26 January 1877 – 28 May 1968) was a Dutch-French painter who was one of the leading Fauves. Van Dongen's early work was influenced by the Hague School and symbolism and it evolved gradually into a r ...

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

Henri Fantin-Latour Henri Fantin-Latour (14 January 1836 – 25 August 1904) was a French painter and lithographer best known for his flower paintings and group portraits of Parisian artists and writers. Biography He was born Ignace Henri Jean Théodore Fantin-La ...

Rik Wouters Hendrik Emil (Rik) Wouters (21 August 1882 – 11 July 1916) was a Belgian painter, sculptor and draughtsman. Wouters produced 200 paintings, drawings and sculptures in his 34 years before his illness-caused death. he died partway through th ...

Gustave De Smet Gustave Franciscus De Smet (21 January 1877 – 8 October 1943) was a Belgian painter. Together with Constant Permeke and Frits Van den Berghe, he was one of the founders of Flemish Expressionism. His younger brother, , also became a painter. ...

, Xavier Mellery en

Constant Permeke Constant Permeke (; 31 July 1886 – 4 January 1952) was a Belgian painter and sculptor who is considered the leading figure of Flemish expressionism. Biography Permeke was born in Antwerp but when he was six years old the family moved to Ost ...

. David was the

patron Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings, popes, and the wealthy have provided to artists su ...

of Belgian

expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

painter

Gustave van de Woestijne Gustave Van de Woestijne (; 2 August 1881 – 21 April 1947) was a Belgian expressionist painter. He belonged to the so-called "First Group of Latem", a group of artists who worked in the rural village of Sint-Martens-Latem on the banks ...

. Van Buurens collections consists of 32 paintings of Van de Woestijne. The living room is decorated with a rich collection of modernist carpets designed by the Dutch designer Jaap Gidding and a grand piano made of rosewood designed by

Julius Blüthner Julius Ferdinand Blüthner (11 March 1824 - 13 April 1910) was a German piano maker and founder of the Blüthner piano factory. Biography Blüthner was born in Falkenhain (now Meuselwitz), Thuringia. In 1853 he founded a piano-manufacturing ...

. Jan Eisenloeffel designed the Art Deco chandelier in the entrance hall. On 16 July 2013, the paintings ''Shrimps and Shells'' of Belgian painter James Ensor and ''The Thinker'' by Dutch artist Kees Van Dongen and eight small works by old masters were stolen.

Garden

The gardens are an extension of the house, into which they seem to penetrate. They originally covered 26 ares (100m²) and now cover 1.5 ha. It is divided into three parts: the first one is "Picturesque Garden" designed by the landscape architect

in 1924 that recalls the spirit of the

Roaring Twenties The Roaring Twenties, sometimes stylized as Roaring '20s, refers to the 1920s decade in music and fashion, as it happened in Western society and Western culture. It was a period of economic prosperity with a distinctive cultural edge in the ...

and represents the geometrical ideas of the Art Deco. The second one, the "Labyrinth", is inspired by the Song of Salomon and decorated with seven sculptures by the Belgian sculptor André Willequet in 1968. The third one, "Garden of the Hearts", was designed by Belgian landscape designer René Pechère in 1970 and brings a touch of romanticism to the park. There is a great harmony of style and time between the J. Buyssens's garden and the Art Deco house. 45 years later, Alice considered René Pechère's gardens as a complement of her villa. This jewel of greenery can be visited all year round.

References

Bibliography

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External links