Born in 1869 into a family of industrialists, Helene Kröller-Müller was, by the early 20th century, one of the wealthiest women in Europe. Encouraged to start collecting by her art teacher, H.P. Bremmer, Kröller-Müller had an excellent eye and amassed one of the world’s largest collections of work by Vincent Van Gogh as well as paintings by Seurat, Mondrian, Picasso and Braque. Though she passed on Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884–86), often regarded as the first Neo-Impressionist work, she made up for it by acquiring many other paintings by the movement’s leading lights. This exhibition at the National Gallery is a good way to get acquainted with her remarkable taste (13 September–8 February 2026). Highlights include Seurat’s Le Chahut (1889–90) – an energetic scene of four can-can dancers whose right legs, neatly mirroring the conductor’s baton and a double bass in the lower half of the painting, high-kick in parallel – which has never visited the UK before.
Find out more from the National Gallery’s website.
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