Helene Emma Laura Juliane Kröller-Müller (; ; 11 February 1869 – 14 December 1939) 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 Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks ...

. 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.

Life and career

Helene Emma Laura Juliane Müller was born in ,

Essen Essen () is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dortmund, as well as ...

, 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.Joshua Levine (21 May 2009)
The Vision Quest of Helene Kroller-Muller
''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

'' magazine. She studied under painter 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

. 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.Sheila Farr (23 May 2004
How a museum founder helped turn van Gogh into an international icon
''

The Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is an American daily newspaper based in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1891, ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region. The Seattle Time ...

''. Kröller-Müller also collected works by modern artists, such as Picasso, Georges Braque,

Jean Metzinger Jean Dominique Antony Metzinger (; 24 June 1883 – 3 November 1956) was a major 20th-century French painter, theorist, writer, critic and poet, who along with Albert Gleizes wrote the first theoretical work on Cubism. His earliest works, from 1 ...

, Albert Gleizes, Fernand Léger, Diego Rivera, Juan Gris,

Piet Mondrian Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), known after 1911 as Piet Mondrian (, , ), was a Dutch Painting, painter and Theory of art, art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He w ...

Gino Severini Gino Severini (7 April 1883 – 26 February 1966) was an Italian Painting, painter and a leading member of the Futurism (art), Futurist movement. For much of his life he divided his time between Paris and Rome. He was associated with neo-classici ...

, 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 Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradit ...

. Also, she steered away from artists of her native Germany, whose work she found "insufficiently authoritative." On a trip to

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

in June 1910, she conceived the idea of creating a museum-house. 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. 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. Held in the care of the Dutch government, the Kröller-Müller Museum was opened in 1938. 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 Arnhem ( ; ; Central Dutch dialects, Ernems: ''Èrnem'') is a Cities of the Netherlands, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands, near the German border. It is the capita ...

. 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. 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.

Life and career

References

Further reading