Kröller-Müller : The First Hundred Years

by R.W.D. Oxenaar (Foreword), A.M. Hammacher (Collaborator), Johannes Van Der Wolk (Collaborator)

English (translation)
Original Dutch

318 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Lloyd Downey · Rating 4 out of 5]

You have to be a bit of a Kröller-Müller museum "groupie" to actually read this from cover to cover. It's an exhaustive (and exhausting) story of the establishment and history of the Museum and gardens at Otterloo in the Netherlands. And I was fortunate enough to be able to visit this beautiful park/museum in about 1979. (Which is within the period covered by this book).. Somewhere I'd become aware of the sculpture garden in Otterloo and i was determined to see it. So with two little kids in tow...we set out on a month long camping trip around Europe. And it rained every day for the first 21 days. I think we drove from Rotterdam on the day we visited Otterloo. But for me, it was wonderful. And I'm fascinated to read how the director during the period 1953-63 set the policies and framework for having a sculpture garden in Nature. (Which was really something rather new). And I especially was struck by the floating white sculpture of Marta Pan. (I've recently visited a similar sculpture garden in Sapporo and noted that they have the same sculpture floating there...love it). Yes the book is old and the art work not as brilliant as modern art publications but I really enjoyed the book ....especially the discussion of the establishment of the sculpture garden. I didn't realise that sculptors had to re-invent their work as sculpture became detached from buildings and there was less emphasis on monumental sculpture. I do have some nice photos taken in the inside museum of Van Gogh's work and noticed that the book refers to Madam Kroller attending art classes in about 1906 which was the beginning of her interest and collection of art works and she was an early collector of Van Gogh. Before writing this review, I probably would have awarded it only two stars, but I've become more enthusiastic as I've been forced to go back to it and read some of the section...so four stars from me.