Kröller-Müller Museum

The Kröller-Müller Museum ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}) is a national art museum and sculpture garden, located in the Hoge Veluwe National Park in Otterlo in the Netherlands. The museum, founded by art collector Helene Kröller-Müller within the extensive grounds of her and her husband's former estate (now the national park), opened in 1938. It has the second-largest collection of paintings by Vincent van Gogh, after the Van Gogh Museum. The museum had 380,000 visitors in 2015.

History

A charming and iconic period photo of a young couple around 1900. The lady has her hair swept upwards and is wearing a high collar fastened with a jewel. The gentleman sports a gallant moustache neatly trimmed and is also wearing a high collar.

Helene Müller and Anton Kröller, Template:Circa

The Kröller-Müller Museum was founded by Helene Kröller-Müller, an avid art collector who, being advised by H.P. Bremmer, was one of the first to recognize Vincent van Gogh's genius and collect his works. In 1935, she donated her whole collection to the state of the Netherlands. In 1938, the museum, which was designed by Henry van de Velde, opened to the public. The sculpture garden was added in 1961 and the new exhibition wing, designed by Wim Quist, opened in 1977.<ref name="history"/>

Collection

File:Jardin d'émail Dubuffet.jpg

Jardin d'émail by Jean Dubuffet in the Kröller-Müller sculpture garden

The museum has a considerable collection of paintings by Vincent van Gogh, such as Café Terrace at Night, and Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity's Gate). Making it the second-largest collection of Van Gogh paintings in the world (after the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam). Apart from the Van Gogh paintings, other highlights include works by Piet Mondrian, Georges-Pierre Seurat, Odilon Redon, Georges Braque, Paul Gauguin, Lucas Cranach, James Ensor, Juan Gris, William Degouve de Nuncques and Pablo Picasso.

Sculpture garden

The Kröller-Müller Museum is also famous for its large sculpture garden, within the forest park, of more than Template:Convert and one of the largest in Europe, with a fine collection of modern and contemporary sculptures. The garden reflects Helene Kröller-Müller's conception of a symbiosis between art, architecture and nature.<ref>Beukhof, H., Essen, F. van, Pelzers, E., Sevink, J. (2005) Nature and Art, The Hoge Veluwe, Waanders Uitgeverij, Zwolle.</ref> The collection includes works by Auguste Rodin, Henry Moore, Jean Dubuffet, Mark di Suvero, Lucio Fontana, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Fritz Wotruba, Joep van Lieshout and many more.

Selected collection highlights

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Administration

	Visitors
2012	307,000<ref name="mv2013">Top 55 Museumbezoek 2012Template:Dead link (in Dutch), Nederlandse Museumvereniging, 2012. Retrieved 19 August 2013.</ref>
2013	330,000<ref name="visitors2013">Daan van Lent & Pieter van Os, "Musea doen het goed: aantal bezoekers in 2013 fors gestegen" (in Dutch), NRC Handelsblad, 2013. Retrieved 3 August 2014.</ref>
2014	392,000<ref name="visitors2015">"380.000 bezoekers voor Kröller-Müller in 2015. Template:Webarchive" Template:In lang, De Stentor, 2016. Retrieved 15 January 2016.</ref>
2015	380,000<ref name="visitors2015"/>
2017	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
2018	Apx. 385,000<ref name=":0" />
2019	405,428<ref name=":0" />
2020	173,000+<ref name=":0" />
2021	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
2022	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
2023	282,926<ref name="visitors2022_2023" />

Lisette Pelsers was the museum director of the Kröller-Müller Museum from 2012 to 2024. She was succeeded by Benno Tempel.<ref name="structure"/><ref>Birgit Donker, "Lisette Pelsers nieuwe directeur Kröller-Müller Museum" (in Dutch), NRC Handelsblad, 2011. Retrieved 29 July 2016.</ref>

The museum had an increasing number of visitors until the COVID-19 pandemic, when it took a severe plunge due to closures and reduced tourism activities overall. Visitor numbers have largely recovered since, but have yet to reach pre-pandemic levels.<ref name="visitors2023">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The museum was the 12th most visited museum nationally in 2013.<ref>Daan van Lent & Pieter van Os, "Musea doen het goed: aantal bezoekers in 2013 fors gestegen" (in Dutch), NRC Handelsblad, 2013. Retrieved 28 June 2014.</ref>

See also

• List of museums in the Netherlands
• List of most visited museums in the Netherlands

Further reading

• Kröller-Müller State Museum, Otterlo. Netherlands: Kröller-Müller State Museum, 1973.

External links

• Template:Official website
• Tour of the Kröller-Müller and grounds
• Kröller-Müller Museum within Google Arts & Culture
• Template:Commons category-inline