Van Gogh Museum

The Van Gogh Museum (Dutch pronunciation: [vɑŋˈɣɔx mʏˌzeːjʏm]) is a Dutch art museum dedicated to the works of Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries in the Museum Square in Amsterdam South, close to the Stedelijk Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Concertgebouw.^[7] The museum opened on 2 June 1973,^[1] and its buildings were designed by Gerrit Rietveld and Kisho Kurokawa.

Van Gogh Museum

Museum at the Museumplein in 2016
Interactive fullscreen map
Established	2 June 1973 (1973-06-02)^[1]
Location	Paulus Potterstraat 7^[2] Amsterdam, Netherlands
Coordinates	52°21′30″N 4°52′52″E / 52.35833°N 4.88111°E / 52.35833; 4.88111
Type	Art museum National museum
Visitors	2.1 million (2016)^[3] 2.3 million (2017)^[4] Ranked 1st nationally (2018)^[5] Ranked 24th globally (2018)^[6]
Public transit access	Van Baerlestraat/Museumplein Tram line: 2, 3, 5, 12, 16, 24^[2]
Website	www.vangoghmuseum.nl

The museum contains the largest collection of Van Gogh's paintings and drawings in the world. In 2017, the museum had 2.3 million visitors and was the most-visited museum in the Netherlands, and the 23rd-most-visited art museum in the world. In 2019, the Van Gogh Museum launched the Meet Vincent Van Gogh Experience, a technology-driven "immersive exhibition" on Van Gogh's life and works, which has toured globally.

History

 

Johanna van Gogh-Bonger (1925) by Isaac Israëls

 

Vincent van Gogh, Self-portrait with pipe, 1886, Van Gogh Museum

Unsold works

Upon Vincent van Gogh's death in 1890, his work not sold fell into the possession of his brother Theo. Theo died six months after Vincent, leaving the work in the possession of his widow, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger.^[8] Selling many of Vincent's paintings with the ambition of spreading knowledge of his artwork, Johanna maintained a private collection of his works. The collection was inherited by her son Vincent Willem van Gogh in 1925, eventually loaned to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, where it was displayed for many years, and was transferred to the state-initiated Vincent van Gogh Foundation in 1962.^[8]

Dedicated museum

Design for a Van Gogh Museum was commissioned by the Dutch government in 1963 to Dutch architect and furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld.^[9] Rietveld died a year later, and the building was not completed until 1973,^[10] when the museum opened its doors.^[11] In 1998 and 1999, the building was renovated by the Dutch architect Martien van Goor,^[12] and an exhibition wing by the Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa was added.^[13] In late 2012, the museum was closed for renovations for six months. During this period, 75 works from the collection were shown in the H'ART Museum.^[14]

On 9 September 2013, the museum unveiled a long-lost Van Gogh painting that spent years in a Norwegian attic believed to be by another painter. It is the first full-size canvas by him discovered since 1928. Sunset at Montmajour depicts trees, bushes and sky, painted with Van Gogh's familiar thick brush strokes. It can be dated to the exact day it was painted because he described it in a letter to his brother, Theo, and said he painted it the previous day 4 July 1888.^[15]

Art thefts

In 1991, twenty paintings were stolen from the museum, among them Van Gogh's early painting The Potato Eaters. Although the thieves escaped from the building, 35 minutes later all stolen paintings were recovered from an abandoned car. Three paintings – Wheatfield with Crows, Still Life with Bible, and Still Life with Fruit – were severely torn during the theft.^[16] Four men, including two museum guards, were convicted for the theft and given six or seven-year sentences.^[17] It is considered to be the largest art theft in the Netherlands since the Second World War.^[18]

In 2002, two paintings were stolen from the museum, Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen and View of the Sea at Scheveningen.^[19] Two Dutchmen were convicted for the theft to four-and-a-half-year sentences, but the paintings were not immediately recovered.^[20][21] The museum offered a reward of €100,000 for information leading to the recovery of the paintings.^[22] The FBI Art Crime Team listed the robbery on their Top Ten Art Crimes list, and estimates the combined value of the paintings at US$30 million.^[23] In September 2016, both paintings were discovered by the Guardia di Finanza in Castellammare di Stabia, Italy in a villa belonging to the Camorra drug trafficker Raffaele Imperiale.^[24] The two artworks were found in a "relatively good state", according to the Van Gogh Museum.^[25]

Buildings

 

Entrance building

 

Rietveld building

The museum is situated at the Museumplein in Amsterdam-Zuid, on the Paulus Potterstraat 7, between the Stedelijk Museum and the Rijksmuseum,^[26] and consists of two buildings, the Rietveld building, designed by Gerrit Rietveld, and the Kurokawa wing, designed by Kisho Kurokawa.^[27] Museum offices are housed on Stadhouderskade 55 in Amsterdam-Zuid.^[26] Depending on the season, sunflowers may be enjoyed outside the entrance to the museum.

Rietveld building

The Rietveld building is the main structure and houses the permanent collection. It has a rectangular floor plan and is four stories high. On the ground floor are a shop, a café, and an introductory exhibition. The first floor shows the works of Van Gogh grouped chronologically. The second floor gives information about the restoration of paintings and has a space for minor temporary exhibitions. The third floor shows paintings of Van Gogh's contemporaries in relationship to the work of Van Gogh himself.^[28]

Kurokawa wing

The Kurokawa wing is used for major temporary exhibitions. It has an oval floor plan and is three stories high. The entrance to the Kurokawa wing is via a tunnel from the Rietveld building.^[28][29]

Collection

Works by Vincent van Gogh

 

The Potato Eaters (1885)

 

The Yellow House (1888)

 

Self-portrait (1888)

 

Sunflowers (1889)

 

Almond Blossoms (1890)

The museum houses the largest Van Gogh collection in the world,^[30] with 200 paintings, 400 drawings, and 700 letters by the artist.^[31]

The main exhibition chronicles the various phases of Van Gogh's artistic life.

• His selected works from Nuenen (1880–1885):

Avenue of Poplars in Autumn (1884)

The Potato Eaters (1885)

• His selected works from Antwerp (1886):

Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette (1886)

• His selected works from Paris (1886–1888):

Agostina Segatori Sitting in the Café du Tambourin (1887)

Wheat Field with a Lark (1887)

View of Paris from Vincent's Room in the Rue Lepic (1887)

• His selected works from Arles (1888–1889):

The Zouave (1888)

Bedroom in Arles (1888)

The Yellow House (1888)

Sunflowers (1889)

• His selected works from Saint-Rémy (1889–1890):

Almond Blossoms (1890)

 

The Painter of Sunflowers, a portrayal of Vincent van Gogh painting sunflowers by Paul Gauguin, 1888

• And his selected works from Auvers-sur-Oise (1890):

Wheatfield with Crows (1890)

The permanent collection also includes nine of the artist's self-portraits and some of his earliest paintings dating back to 1882.

A newly discovered work has temporarily gone on display. Van Gogh created three unknown sketches of peasants, which were then used as a single bookmark. Stylistically, they can be dated to autumn 1881.^[32]

Works by contemporaries

The museum also features notable artworks by Van Gogh's contemporaries in the Impressionist and post-Impressionist movements and holds extensive exhibitions on various subjects from 19th Century art history.

The museum has sculptures by Auguste Rodin and Jules Dalou, and paintings by John Russell, Émile Bernard, Maurice Denis, Kees van Dongen, Paul Gauguin, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Odilon Redon, Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.^[33]

Gallery

•  
  Head of a woman
•  
  Bloeiende pruimenboomgaard
•  
  Courtesan after Eisen
•  
  Self-portrait with pipe
•  
  Zeegezicht bij Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer
•  
  De oogst
•  
  Zonnebloemen
•  
  Irises
•  
  The sower
•  
  Wheatfield with crows

Meet Vincent Van Gogh Experience

The Van Gogh Museum manages an official Meet Vincent Van Gogh Experience, described as a travelling "3D immersive exhibition" using technology and computer audio-visual techniques to cover the story of Van Gogh's life through images of his works.^[34] The first "experience" was in 2016 in Beijing,^{[35][unreliable source?][36]} and it has since been toured globally to Europe, Asia and North America.^[37]

The Meet Van Gogh Experience does not present original artworks, as they are too fragile to travel.^[37] The "experience" was designed in collaboration with the London-based museum design consultancy, Event Communications (who designed Titanic Belfast),^[38] and it won a 2017 THEA award in the category of Immersive Museum Exhibit: Touring.^[39]

Visitors

Year	Visitors	Year	Visitors
2000	1,312,000^[40]	2010	1,430,000^[41]
2001	1,276,000^[40]	2011	1,601,000^[41]
2002	1,593,000^[40]	2012	1,438,000^[42]
2003	1,342,000^[41]	2013	1,449,000^[43]
2004	1,338,000^[41]	2014	1,609,000^[44]
2005	1,417,000^[41]	2015	1,900,000^[4]
2006	1,677,000^[41]	2016	2,100,000^[3]
2007	1,560,000^[41]	2017	2,255,000
2008	1,474,000^[41]	2018	2,190,000
2009	1,451,000^[41]	2019	–

The Van Gogh Museum, which is a national museum (Dutch: rijksmuseum),^[45] is a foundation (Dutch: stichting).^[46]

Axel Rüger, who had been the museum director since 2006,^[46][47] left the museum in 2019 to become secretary and chief executive of the Royal Academy of Arts in London.^[48] The Van Gogh Museum announced that Managing Director Adriaan Dönszelmann would act as general director until a new director is appointed.^[49]

Since 2000, the museum had between 1.2 and 1.9 million visitors per year.^{[4][40][41][42][43][44]} From 2010 to 2012, it was the most visited museum in the Netherlands.^[50][51][52] In 2015, the museum had 1.9 million visitors,^[4] it was the 2nd most visited museum in the Netherlands, after the Rijksmuseum,^[5] and the 31st most visited art museum in the world.^[6]

The Van Gogh Museum is a member of the national Museumvereniging (Museum Association).^[53]

See also

• Kröller-Müller Museum
• List of single-artist museums
• List of works by Vincent van Gogh

References

1. (in Dutch) Ronald de Leeuw, "Introduction: the Van Gogh Museum as a National Museum, 1973–1994", Van Gogh Museum Journal, 1995. Retrieved 9 July 2014.
2. Address, accessibility, directions and parking 14 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Van Gogh Museum. Retrieved 9 July 2014.
3. Jasper Piersma, "Van Gogh Museum zit Rijks op de hielen als populairste museum" (in Dutch), Het Parool, 2016. Retrieved 3 January 2017.
4. (in Dutch) "Bezoekersrecords voor Van Gogh Museum en NEMO", AT5, 2015. Retrieved 15 January 2016.
5. (in Dutch) Yannick Verberckmoes, "Veel meer bezoekers voor grootste Nederlandse musea", de Volkskrant, 2015. Retrieved 16 July 2016.
6. Top 100 Art Museum Attendance, The Art Newspaper, 2016. Retrieved 16 July 2016.
7. Museumplein, 13 August 2012 at the Wayback Machine I Amsterdam. Retrieved 17 October 2012.
8. , National Gallery of Art, archived from the original on 29 May 2010, retrieved 23 April 2011
9. The Van Gogh Museum In Amsterdam Hosts Our Editor ~ The World's Largest Collection of Van Gogh's Artwork, Art Knowledge News, retrieved 23 April 2011
10. , SFMOMA, archived from the original on 28 July 2010, retrieved 23 April 2011
11. The Organization 20 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Van Gogh Museum. Retrieved 30 January 2012.
12. The museum's architecture in overview 15 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Van Gogh Museum. Retrieved 6 February 2012.
13. , Kisho Kurokawa architect & associates, 2006, archived from the original on 2 October 2011, retrieved 23 April 2011
14. Dan Saltzstein, "Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum to Close for Renovations", New York Times, 2011. Retrieved 5 February 2012.
15. Siegal, Nina (9 September 2013). "New Van Gogh Painting Unveiled in Amsterdam". NY Times. Retrieved 9 September 2013.
16. Paul L. Montgomery, "Lost and Found: Huge van Gogh Theft Fails", New York Times, 1991. Retrieved 31 January 2012.
17. (in Dutch) "Rovers Van Gogh in hoger beroep forser gestraft", Trouw, 1992. Retrieved 24 February 2012.
18. (in Dutch) "Diefstal Van Goghs grootste kunstroof in Nederland" (subscribers only), NRC Handelsblad, 1991. Retrieved 24 February 2012.
19. "Two van Gogh Works Are Stolen in Amsterdam", New York Times, 2002. Retrieved 5 February 2012.
20. Lawrence Van Gelder, "Jail for Van Gogh Thieves", New York Times, 2004. Retrieved 5 February 2012.
21. (in Dutch) "Ook bij hof veroordeling van rovers", de Volkskrant, 2005. Retrieved 5 February 2012.
22. Van Gogh Museum offers reward for information about theft of paintings 10 January 2014 at the Wayback Machine (press release), Van Gogh Museum, 2003. Retrieved 5 February 2012.
23. Van Gogh Museum Robbery 14 April 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved 23 February 2012.
24. Martin, Guy. "Two Stolen Van Goghs Worth $112 Million Found in a Police Raid on a Mafia Don's Villa in Italy". Forbes. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
25. "Van Gogh paintings stolen from Amsterdam found in Italy". BBC News. 30 September 2016. Retrieved 30 September 2016.
26. Contact 20 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Van Gogh Museum. Retrieved 3 February 2012.
27. The museum's architecture in overview 15 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Van Gogh Museum. Retrieved 5 February 2012.
28. (in Dutch) Informatie (Dutch visitor's brochure, February 2012), Van Gogh Museum.
29. The layout 3 November 2012 at the Wayback Machine, Van Gogh Museum. Retrieved 5 February 2012.
30. Ahmed, Shamim (10 July 2015). . theindependentbd.com. The Independent. Archived from the original on 15 June 2022. Retrieved 15 June 2022.
31. History of the collection 4 June 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Van Gogh Museum. Retrieved 30 January 2012.
32. "A new Van Gogh work discovered hidden in a book". The Art Newspaper. 25 June 2021.
33. Other artists in the collection, Van Gogh Museum. Retrieved 30 January 2012.
34. . Event Communications. 2019. Archived from the original on 7 October 2019. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
35. Mica Kelmachte (9 August 2016). "3D Vincent Van Gogh Universe Launches In Beijing". Forbes.
36. . Event Communications. Archived from the original on 8 October 2019. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
37. "Meet Vincent van Gogh Experience". Van Gogh Museum. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
38. "Elbow Productions Celebrates Opening of 'Meet Vincent van Gogh' with Event". MuseumInsider. 11 July 2016. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
39. "Past Thea Award recipients: 1994–2018". Themed Entertainment Association. Retrieved 5 October 2019.
40. Van Gogh Museum closes Van Gogh's 150th anniversary year successfully with 1.3 million visitors 14 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine (press release), Van Gogh Museum, 2004. Retrieved 13 July 2014.
41. Numbers of Visitors 28 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Van Gogh Museum, 2012. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
42. Van Gogh Museum Collection visited by almost 1.5 million culture lovers from around the world 14 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Van Gogh Museum, 2012. Retrieved 2 January 2013.
43. Numbers of Visitors 20 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine, Van Gogh Museum. Retrieved 28 June 2014.
44. (in Dutch) Bezoekcijfers 20 October 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Van Gogh Museum. Retrieved 29 October 2015.
45. (in Dutch) Max van Rooij, "Een schitterend, alles overstralend pantser", NRC Handelsblad, 1999. Retrieved 13 July 2014.
46. Management 14 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Van Gogh Museum. Retrieved 13 July 2014.
47. (in Dutch) "Duitser Axel Rüger nieuwe directeur Van Gogh Museum", de Volkskrant, 2006. Retrieved 13 July 2014.
48. Jhala, Kabir (13 February 2019). "Axel Rüger, director of Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, appointed new chief executive of Royal Academy". theartnewspaper.com. Retrieved 21 June 2019.
49. "Management Team – Van Gogh Museum". www.vangoghmuseum.nl. Retrieved 21 June 2019.
50. (in Dutch) Top 55 Museumbezoek 2010. Nederlandse Museumvereniging. Retrieved 3 February 2012.
51. (in Dutch) Top 55 Museumbezoek 2011 30 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Nederlandse Museumvereniging. Retrieved 3 February 2012.
52. (in Dutch) Top 55 Museumbezoek 2012 21 September 2013 at the Wayback Machine, Nederlandse Museumvereniging. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
53. (in Dutch) Van Gogh Museum 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Museumvereniging. Retrieved 13 July 2014.

External links

• Official website
• Meet Vincent Van Gogh Experience website
• Virtual tour of the Van Gogh Museum provided by Google Arts & Culture
•   Media related to Van Gogh Museum at Wikimedia Commons