Van Gogh Museum
About the Museum
The Van Gogh Museum on Amsterdam's Museumplein holds the largest collection of Vincent van Gogh's work anywhere in the world: around two hundred paintings, five hundred drawings and more than eight hundred letters, nearly all of them inherited by his brother Theo and kept together by Theo's widow Jo van Gogh-Bonger and their son Vincent Willem. The family handed the collection to the Dutch state in 1962 and the museum opened in 1973 in a building designed by Gerrit Rietveld, with a curved exhibition wing by Kisho Kurokawa added in 1999 and a glass entrance hall in 2015.
The permanent collection hangs in the Rietveld building and follows Vincent's life in order. The ground floor introduces the artist through his self-portraits, the first floor moves from the dark peasant pictures of Nuenen through the bright experiments of Paris, the second floor covers Arles, the asylum at Saint-Remy and the final weeks in Auvers, and the top floor turns to his friends, his influences and the letters. Works by artists Vincent admired, from Millet to Monet, Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec, are shown alongside his own so that you can see what he was looking at.
Because the paintings are small and the crowds are large, the museum works best when you slow down. Choose a handful of pictures, get close and look at the paint itself, which is thick, fast and full of visible decisions. The building is compact and a full visit takes about two hours.
Before You Go
- Tickets are sold online only with a timed entry slot and the museum regularly sells out days ahead, so book before you travel.
- The first slot of the morning and the last two hours before closing are the quietest; late openings on Fridays are relaxed and often have music.
- Follow the floors in order from the ground floor up: the hang is chronological and the story makes far more sense that way.
- Photography of the collection is not allowed inside the galleries, which keeps the rooms calmer; the shop sells excellent reproductions.
- Free lockers and a cloakroom are next to the entrance hall; large bags must be checked.
- The multimedia guide is worth it here because the labels are short and the letters add a great deal to the paintings.
- The Stedelijk Museum and the Rijksmuseum are a few minutes' walk away on the same square if you want to combine visits.
Collection Areas
Highlights
12 works. Each work has a full written and audio guide.
