Van Baaren Collection
This collection has been on long-term loan from the Centraal Museum since 1980 and offers an impression of international developments in painting in the early twentieth century.
Lambertus (1888–1964) and Josephina (1890–1959) van Baaren, a brother and sister from a family of Utrecht entrepreneurs, were avid art collectors. Between 1925 and 1964, they acquired some 400 works, mainly paintings by French and Dutch artists from the period 1850–1950. Their collection adorned the walls of their shared home on the Oudegracht in Utrecht, where each decorated their own rooms according to their personal taste. In 1956, the siblings established the Van Baaren Museum Foundation to safeguard their collection and share it with the public. In 1980, the foundation placed all the works on long-term loan with the Centraal Museum, where they became an important addition to the collection of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century art.
The Van Baaren Collection paints a picture of international developments in painting in the early twentieth century. It is a good example of a typical private collection formed under the influence of the art educator H. P. Bremmer. Bremmer wrote extensively about art and gave many lectures, thereby exerting considerable influence on the ‘good taste’ of the affluent middle classes.
Highlights of this subcollection include works by Vincent van Gogh, Auguste Herbin, Jean Metzinger, Floris Verster, Johan Bartold Jongkind and Piet Mondrian, among others.
