The Frans Hals Museum is the oldest art museum in the Netherlands. Since 1913 the museum – in the spirit of its ‘founding father’ Frans Hals, who was known as an innovator – has shown and collected ‘contemporary art’. Today, the museum is the home of an outstanding collection of (Haarlem) masters from the 16th and 17th century, including the largest collection of Frans Hals paintings in the world, as well as a unique assemblage of contemporary art. Combining the old and the new in innovative ways, the museum makes exhibitions at two locations in the historic city center of Haarlem. The museum proudly takes the public along to the unprecedented flourishing of painting in the Golden Age and to international developments in contemporary visual art. In the beginning of the 17th century, Haarlem painters such as Frans Hals started implementing exciting, artistic innovations. They unleashed the unparalleled boom of painting in the Golden Age. Art that still has – to this day – an unrivaled international allure. The objective is to link this artistic innovation of the Golden Age with that of today. The museum, therefore, aims to introduce the widest possible audience to the leading and groundbreaking works of historical and contemporary forerunners.