A groundbreaking exhibition at London's National Gallery celebrates the visionary collecting of Helene Kröller-Müller, a pioneering woman who championed Van Gogh and the Neo-Impressionist movement long before the mainstream art world recognized their significance. "Radical Harmony: Helene Kröller-Müller's Neo-Impressionists" features over 30 artworks from her collection, on loan while the Kröller-Müller Museum in the Netherlands undergoes renovation, and runs through February 8, 2026.
Kröller-Müller, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist and wife of another, distinguished herself as one of the first women to assemble a major art collection. Unlike most collectors of her era who aimed for comprehensive breadth across different periods, she focused specifically on individuals and schools, prioritizing what she called "thinking artists" of her own time. Her prescient eye led her to acquire many of Van Gogh's works and become an early champion of Neo-Impressionism, purchasing major pieces by Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, and their contemporaries before leading galleries had recognized their importance.
The exhibition showcases not only these famous names but also lesser-known artists from the Low Countries, including Jan Toorop, Théo van Rysselberghe, and Anna Boch. Several were associated with Les XX, the Belgian artistic movement that helped spread Neo-Impressionism beyond France's borders. All adopted the Pointillist technique, though some rejected the label itself. The Kröller-Müller loans are supplemented by approximately 25 complementary works from other collections, reuniting some pieces originally conceived in pairs.
Among the most emotionally powerful works are Toorop's "Evening (Before the Strike)" and "Morning (After the Strike)" from 1888-90, which depict a married couple's anguish followed by the wife's devastated resignation as her husband's corpse is carried away. These images align with the exhibition's emphasis on the radical political sympathies of many Neo-Impressionist artists, who shared connections with the anarchist-communist movement of the late 19th century.
Several artists depicted workers in idealized, utopian settings that reflected their political beliefs. Signac's chalk-drawn study for "In The Time of Harmony" (1893-95) shows workers picking figs and resting in Mediterranean shade; he later painted a mural on this subject for a working-class Parisian suburb's town hall. Maximilien Luce's "The Iron Foundry" (1899), a quasi-Futurist representation of laborers silhouetted against fire and cloud, was displayed for years in the office of Kröller-Müller's wealthy husband, suggesting he was something of an early champagne socialist.
While the exhibition claims artistic radicalism, the reality is more nuanced. Neo-Impressionism certainly brought innovations, taking a quasi-scientific approach to light and optics by using dots of pure color that merge to form coherent wholes, much like modern pixels. The gradual evolution from dots to large daubs and swirls is clearly traced throughout the exhibition, most strikingly in Henry van de Velde's "Woman Sewing" (1891). Van de Velde would later become the architect of Kröller-Müller's museum.
However, visitors expecting truly revolutionary modern art may find themselves disappointed. The largest proportion of paintings, positioned in rooms at the beginning and end of the exhibition, are beach and harbor scenes and other landscapes rendered in muted palettes that create impressions of serenity and stillness rather than challenge or confrontation.
The exhibition's star attraction is undoubtedly Seurat's "Chahut" (1889-90), the first major work by the artist acquired for public display and a shrewd purchase by Kröller-Müller, who had made the mistake of not buying "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte." This stylized image bursts with movement, drawing the eye upward with the high kicks of can-can dancers and the conductor's raised baton. The curators have hung "Chahut" effectively, placing viewers on level with the double-bassist whose back faces us, while also positioning us uncomfortably close to the voyeur at bottom right—a seedy figure with a grotesque rouged smile, snout-like nose, and hat pulled low for anonymity.
Several other paintings of working-class entertainment hang nearby, including a café-concert by Camille Pissarro and a bullfight at the Paris World's Fair by Henri-Edmond Cross. These works are painted from audience members' perspectives, inviting viewers to imagine themselves not as bourgeois art collectors but as part of "la foule"—the crowd.
Color usage, as expected, forms a major exhibition theme. Visitors are first presented with a color wheel illustrating how Neo-Impressionists juxtaposed shades from opposite spectrum sides to maximize luminosity and vibrancy. Signac's "Collioure, the Belltower, Opus 164" (1887)—one of Kröller-Müller's first purchases—exemplifies this approach with its coastal village scene using delicate blues and peaches to create glowing light effects.
Unfortunately, the curators haven't been as attentive to color subtleties as the artists themselves. While they claim to have adopted Kröller-Müller's unusual approach of using white walls as neutral backdrops for the Neo-Impressionists' dazzling hues, the paint used in London appears more pale gray than white, flattening rather than flattering the displayed shades.
Elsewhere, the color scheme swings to the opposite extreme with deep purple walls—the shade of cardinal's vestments or chocolate wrappers, depending on one's perspective. This choice works with varying success. Van Rysselberghe's arresting portrait of his wife Maria, who holds viewers' gazes assertively while posed in tangerine silk before a vase of colorful chrysanthemums, pops dramatically against this background. However, the same artist's "Maria Sèthe at the Harmonium," featuring the sitter in dark mauve against a yellow instrument, appears sickly and almost psychedelic.
Despite the somewhat inconsistent hanging choices and perhaps exaggerated claims of radicalism, the exhibition offers considerable enjoyment. Particularly fascinating are the portraits of artists, musicians, writers, women's rights campaigners, and academics from turn-of-the-century Brussels—a vibrant yet largely forgotten intellectual environment that shaped the Neo-Impressionist movement.
Kröller-Müller herself emerges as a truly inspiring figure throughout the exhibition. Her magnificent collection began simply with an art appreciation course she took with her child, but grew into something intended not for personal pleasure but for public education and edification. Her vision of art as a tool for social enlightenment makes her collecting philosophy as radical as the artworks she championed, representing a noble venture that continues to educate and inspire visitors more than a century later.
