Moments from Singer

Singer Laren is built around the collection and home of William Henry Singer Jr., an American-born painter and heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune, who settled in the Dutch village of Laren in the early twentieth century with his wife Anna, a sculptor, and turned their circle of artist friends into the core of what became a public museum after his death, opening in 1956. It sits inside their former estate, and the wooded sculpture garden that surrounds the building still has the feel of a private garden rather than an institutional lawn, benches and clearings scaled for a couple who actually lived there rather than crowds who visit.

The permanent collection leans toward the Hague School and international Impressionism that the Singers personally collected and befriended, but the museum has also built a strong reputation for ambitious loan exhibitions that punch well above the size of the town it sits in. Laren itself is worth the half hour from Amsterdam, a genuinely picturesque village that has drawn artists since the 1870s, so treat the trip as a full afternoon rather than a quick museum stop. The sculpture garden is free to walk even outside museum hours in season, worth checking before you plan your visit around ticketed opening times alone.