Centraal Museum

Centraal Museum Utrecht, an open house to explore and discover. From Scorel to Bruna to Viktor & Rolf, from Rietveld to the Utrecht Caravaggists, and from Bloemaert to Marlene Dumas. Classical alongside modern, design alongside Utrecht history, experimental alongside monumental. A museum which leaves you inspired time after time. Expect the unexpected.

The Centraal Museum collection consists of more than 50,000 objects, which cannot easily be placed under one umbrella. This diverse collection, passing from discipline to discipline and through different periods and styles, ranges from contemporary drawings to historical costumes, and from abstract paintings to antiquities, but also contains the Centraal Museum Chair by Richard Hutten (1999) and the Utrecht Ship (ca 1000).

Quite naturally, Centraal Museum is home to Utrecht artists Dick Bruna and Gerrit Rietveld. However, works by Utrecht Caravaggists Gerard Honthorst and Hendrick ter Brugghen – followers of the
Italian painter Caravaggio (1571-1610) – just as equally provide the museum with that international seal of approval. Together with Abraham Bloemaert and Jan van Scorel, these artists took the traditional art in North-Holland to a far greater level.

Another good reason for making your way to the museum is Pyke Koch’s magical surrealism, and also the surrealism of Joop Moesman. The latter was responsible for Utrecht being the epicentre of surrealism during the thirties and forties of the 20th century.