The Grand Rapids Art Museum hosts the largest collection of Dutch paintings in the United States. Dutch Utopia: American Artists in Holland, 1880-1914 features the large-scale works of 40 American artists who traveled and lived in Dutch colonies in the late 1800s.

The rapid growth of technology in late nineteenth-century America spurred a longing for a pre-industrial way of life and a close relationship with nature, leading these American artists to travel to the Netherlands to paint and study.

"The fact that these artists chose to seek this out in the Netherlands rather than the American countryside is one of the most intriguing aspects of these paintings," said GRAM Associate Curator Cindy Buckner.

These American artists, along with Vincent van Gogh and Piet Mondrian, were influenced by The Hague School.

Since The Hague School focused on the use of somber-colored palettes, it has also been referred to as The Gray School. It was named after a group of artists who lived and worked in The Hague between 1860 and 1890.

The 40 American artists featured in the exhibit were among hundreds of Americans who traveled to the Netherlands between 1880 and 1914 to paint and to study.

"Some lived in Holland for decades, while others stayed only a week or two, but most passed quickly through the major cities to small rural communities where they created picturesque idylls on canvas," said Buckner.

Dutch Utopia: American Artists in Holland, 1880-1914 boasts more than 70 paintings- mainly oil on canvas, with a handful of watercolors- depicting scenes like women at work, and boats on the Dutch sea or resting in a marina. Dutch Utopia marks the first exhibition of this Dutch-American art to be exhibited in both the U.S. and Holland. It features works drawn from 12 European lenders from five countries including the Singer Laren Museum (The Netherlands), The National Gallery (Berlin), and The Tate Museum (London).

The exhibition also features the paintings of Grand Rapids native Mathias Alten, whose piece "The Broken Mast," owned by GRAM, is included in the exhibition and the international tour.

Dutch Utopia: American Artists in Holland, 1880-1914 is organized by the Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Ga., in association with the Singer Laren Museum, the Netherlands. This exhibition is made possible through the support of the   Terra Foundation for American Art and the Henry Luce Foundation, with additional support provided by the Telfair Academy Guild and the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

William Henry Howe
(1846-1929)

Evening at Laren, the Meadows-Cattle (Evening-Laren Meadows), 1890

Oil on canvas on panel
33 x 42 ½ inches

Collection of the Union League Club of Chicago, Illinois, UL1908.4

Gari Melchers
(1860-1932)

The Sermon, 1886

Oil on canvas
62 ⅝ x 86 ½ inches

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
Bequest of Henry Ward Ranger through the National Academy of Design