Beatrix opens new Singer rooms with the Blokkers collection

The couple named the collection after their home Laren Nardinclant. Their Nardinc collection includes over forty works of art by Jan Sluijters and over seventy works by contemporaries and will be partly exhibited in Laren during the exhibition Sluijters and the Moderns, Nardinc Collection. The entire donation cannot be admired here at the moment, as it is even larger and will still be exhibited in temporary exhibitions.

According to the museum, Sluijters’ work runs like a red thread through the exhibition and “shines” in the five special rooms among those of other Dutch modernists from the former possessions of the Blokkers. In addition to Sluijters’ work, there are also works by Jan Toorop, Leo Gestel, Piet van der Hem, Kees van Dongen, Charley Toorop, Charlotte van Pallandt, Dick Ket and Carel Willink.

Anna and William Singer

In Laren, the collection will be brought together under the same roof with that of the American couple Anna and William Singer, made up of works by French painters from Barbizon, the schools of The Hague and Amsterdam and the impressionists from Laren. The museum is actually based on this collection. Widow Blokker contributed about half of Singer’s rebuilding and renovation costs, a total of $7.5 million. A special curator can also take care of his old collection at his own expense.

The new spaces cover a total of 400 square meters, providing the museum with five new exhibition halls, in addition to a Nardinc gallery, a garden room as a reception area, a cinema room and also a an extensive museum shop.

Leiko Ikemura

Recently, a new bronze statue was erected on the same forecourt of the museum, by the artist Leiko Ikemura. The Fukushima nuclear disaster was the origin of Ikemura’s image. According to the museum, it shows a hybrid, half-human, half-animal mother figure. “Tears are streaming down her cheeks. She dares to be vulnerable, to show her emotions. At the same time, she is strong and offers protection in the face of life’s setbacks; someone who is always there, no matter how great the ‘a disaster.” said a spokeswoman.

Visitors can, so to speak, hide under the skirt of the statue. The sculpture was made thanks to a collaboration with ARTZUID, the biennial of sculpture.