Kroller Muller Museum 3: Rhodo Riot In The Sculpture Garden

The Kroller Muller is famous also for its sculpture garden--a sculpture forest, really--and certainly more than we could view in an afternoon. The De Loge Veluwe National Park setting was gorgeous, in the Dutch highlands (above sea level), a mixed forest with mature rhododendrons in full bloom everywhere.

Entering the sculpture garden from the museum

Actual mini-hills here and there

Rodin's Femme Accroupie, 1882, was certainly
the oldest item in the collection

Our favorite, of course, was Emile-Antoine
Bourdelle's La Grande Penelope, 1912 

Aristide Maillol's L'Aire, 1944

Atop Jean Debuffet's Jardin d'Email, 1974

Rhodo riot

Ditto

Up closer

Henri Etienne-Martin, Demeure 3, 1960

Peter-Paul Pruning-Shears, More Vigorous Growth, 2015

Rhodo-panorama with Vicki, 2015

Evert Strobos, Palisade, 1943

Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale 'Natura" 1960; wait a second,
didn't we see these guys on the beach in New Zealand?
http://roadeveron.blogspot.nl/2014/01/moeraki-boulders.html

Mario Merz, Igloo di pietra, 1982; I liked this one

Eugene Dodeigne, Homme et Femme, 1963

Cornelius Rogge, Tentenprojects, 1975; one of several in this
display; we have seen things like this in British campgrounds

A Christo, of course: 56 Barrels, 1968-77

And then a whole line-up of human heads with
animal horns, the artist's name for which I failed
to get...

We were having too much fun

Thus

The last piece was actually outside the museum,
and we debated whether it was art or part of
the HVAC system: Bertrand Lavier's Prive sure
Mobi, 1968; why not both?

Kroller Muller Museum 2

There were two large rooms of Van Goghs, nearly all from the last 4 years of his life (he only painted for 10), with paintings he admired sprinkled here and there as well as the usual explanatory comments to his brother and confidant Theo. The overall title of the exhibit was "Van Gogh & Co." Oh, and since I am usually the first to complain, the lighting, both natural and artificial, in this museum was exemplary. Everything was under glass, but you had to examine it closely and carefully to tell....

Potato-eaters, 1885

Pink peach trees, 1888

Cypresses with two figures, 1889-90

Patch of grass, 1887

Vicki, studying, 2015

Bridge at Arles, 1888

Landscape with wheat sheaves and rising moon, 1889

Wheat field with reaper and sun, 1889

Wheat stack under a cloudy sky, 1889

Still life with straw hat, 1881

Still life with meadow flowers and roses, 1886-
1887

Four sunflowers gone to seed, 1887

Carpenter's shed and laundry, 1882

Le Moulin de la Galette, 1886

Terrace of a cafe at night, 1888; new personal
favorite and pretty much the emblem of the
museum

Still life with a plate of onions, 1889

Portrait of Joseph Roulin, 1889 (the local
postman)

Sorrowing old man (At Eternity's Gate), 1889

Self-portrait, 1887

Kroller Muller Museum 1

Ohne die Umlaute. We have seen our share of great "individual" museums--collections of one person or perhaps a family, then donated to the state or otherwise made public: the Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon, the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, the Wallace Collection in London, the Rockox House or the Mayer van der Bergh in Antwerp. The Kroller Muller, near Otterlo, Netherlands, certainly ranks with these, particularly for its post-Impressionist works.

Helena Kroller-Muller, daughter of a wealthy German industrialist and married to an equally wealthy Dutch industrialist, was perhaps the first female art collector of means--incredible means--and she used her wealth to amass one of Europe's great collections. Some 12,000 items. She and her husband Anton Kroller donated it all eventually to the Netherlands in 1935. Part of the donation was the land they had purchased, some thousands of acres, to become a national park, housing the collection and museum. It is all now in the Hoge Veluwe National Park, near Otterlo. She was perhaps the first collector to realize the importance of Van Gogh, and the Kroller Muller contains more works by Vincent than any other museum...except the one in Amsterdam. If you love Van Gogh, you have to see this place! First, I'll post a few non-Vincent pix, then will post a selection of the incredible Van Goghs in this collection.

It is first of all a national park, in Netherlands, and here is one lot of the 1700
free bicycles (each with a kiddie seat) provided for visitors (we tried: Vicki
gave up, unscathed; I persisted, not unscathed)(my Mal de Debarquement issues)

Entrance to museum

Characteristically unpretentious

We always head for the gift-store first; I was comforted by
the presence of Unemployed Philosophers' Guild dolls--but
there was no Vincent with the removable velcro ear!

Still processing this one

Size 10, please

Never miss a Cranach; here, the Virgin with Baby J and the bees...
wait, no...

Van Cleef's Building of the Tower of Babel

Moving right along, Monet's Studio Boat

A Renoir Vincent admired

Fantin-Latour's portrait of Eva Callimachi- Catargi

Picasso's Violin; OK, here we have skipped over room after
room of Mondriaans, etc.

Leger's Soldiers Playing Cards

Vicki really liked the Jan Toroop--here, Fatalisme--which shelikened to Art
Nouveau

Kindness Of Strangers, Again

It is one of the cliches of travel, I know, and we have been the beneficiaries so many times.... En route to Schokland, crossing the former Zuider Zee, one of those red warning lights came on on our Fiat's instrument panel. Slow down, stop when you can, look at the owner's manual. Wait a second, the owner's manual is in German!

We camped at the de Voorst Recreatiepark, near Schokland, and the hostess and host there were kind enough to translate the relevant owner's manual pages--we have yet to meet a Nederlander who wasn't fluent in at least three languages--and then to refer us to a nearby independent garage. The mechanic there dropped everything, Saturday morning, came out and hand-drained the water out of the Fiat's diesel fuel filter, smiled and said "No charge...have a nice day!" Kindness of strangers! Thanks!

In the De Voorst Recreatiepark