The heart of the present Singer collection includes works William and Anna Singer assembled in the early 1900s. They purchased works by French painters from the Barbizon School, by American artists with whom they were acquainted, and by traditional Impressionist works by local artists including Hein Kever and Evert Pieters. Special friends included the American painter Walter Griffin, the Norwegian painter and sculptor Martin Borgord, the Frenchman Henri Le Sidaner and the Dutch painters Jacob and Willem Dooijewaard.

Their collections, spread over their various homes, also included French and Dutch sculpture, Asiatic art and applied art. Anna Singer donated a large portion of these artworks in 1956 to the Singer Memorial Foundation in Laren, and it is this gift that forms the basis for the museum’s present permanent collection.

 

Since its founding in 1956 Singer Laren has expanded the core collection with acquisitions, gifts and loans, by and large paintings from the Hague School and Amsterdam Impressionists. Acquisitions were made possible in part by the Friends of the Singer Museum. Major gifts thereafter included works by Ferdinand Hart Nibbrig and the Groeneveld-Woerlee collection. The present collection includes nearly 700 paintings, 2000 works on paper, 180 sculptures and some 300 pieces of applied art.

 

Singer Laren’s acquisition policy focuses on modernist artworks, such as neo-Impressionism or pointillism, expressionism, cubism and geometric abstraction. Prominent artists belonging to these currents have worked in and around Laren.

 

In recent years the collection has been expanded with purchases, gifts and loans of works by Bart van der Leck, Jan Sluijters, Leo Gestel, Chris Beekman, Jan Toorop, Mommie Schwarz, Else Berg, Gustave De Smet, Herman Kruyder and others.