DClog

Van Gogh to Mondrian

Ruth, Rachel, Bev and I got together this morning and went to the High Museum to see the exhibition of Modern Art from the Kröller-Müller Museum. This exhibit was in Seattle earlier this year.

I found the Van Gogh drawings were really inspirational and made me smile. I also really like the architectural drawings by Hendrick Petrus Berlage and Henry van de Velde. Rachel connected with the Mondrian pieces.

Afterward we went to lunch and sat on the patio at Panera Bread and talked about the artists. The conversation lead to the fact that many great and innovative artists, as well as musician, writers, physicists and scientists, are a bit on the crazy side. I suppose they are wired a little different than the normal person. I would much rather be considered left-of-center and have inspiration, ideas and feel compelled to create as opposed to being normal, safe and status quo. I even said outloud something I have felt many times, "I'd rather die than not live".

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

With a significant group of some 20 paintings and drawings by Vincent van Gogh as the core of the exhibition, Van Gogh to Mondrian tells the fascinating story of one of the 20th century’s greatest patrons of modern art, architecture, and design. One of the most important promoters of modernism in Holland, Helene Kröller-Müller created a remarkable ensemble of paintings by the most significant figures of the early modern period, including Fernand Léger, Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso, Georges Seurat, and Vincent van Gogh. Working with leading Dutch modernist artists and architects in the 1910s and 1920s, Mrs. Kröller-Müller and her husband, Anton, envisioned a future museum where the public could enjoy and study the development of modern painting from Pointillism and Cubism to Neoplasticism.

Influenced by her relationship with noted art historian H.P. Bremmer, Helene Kröller-Müller’s educated eye and vast wealth provided the resources for creating a remarkable collection in a short time. Her interest in modern painting drew her to the leading Symbolist, Neo-Impressionist, and Cubist painters of the period. Kröller-Müller came to see art as evolving from 19th century Realism towards an increasing “idealism” of spirituality and inner clarity. An early devotee of van Gogh (1853-1890), she created the largest private collection of the Dutch artist’s works, ultimately owning more than 90 paintings and 185 drawings. The Kröller-Müller Museum’s van Gogh collection is second only to that of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in size and quality.

Van Gogh to Mondrian features a grouping of 12 major van Gogh paintings and 10 drawings from the Kröller-Müller collection. Of these, one has never traveled to this country (Self Portrait , 1887), and others were last seen in special loan exhibitions 50 or more years ago. This very significant selection of paintings includes iconic images such as The Café Terrace at Night (1888), Sorrowing Old Man (1890), and portraits of Joseph and Augustine Roulin. Piet Mondrian is represented in the exhibition with seven paintings spanning a period from 1913 to 1919 and reflecting key moments in the artist’s evolution. The exhibition also includes architectural designs and models of the Kröller-Müller Museum produced by Hendrick Petrus Berlage, Henry van de Velde, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, as well as furniture commissioned by the Kröller-Müllers from Berlage and a magnificent stained-glass window designed by Bart van der Leck.

Posted by dancoy at October 31, 2004 06:15 PM