Van Gogh Museum

The works

Van Gogh's unsold work passed to his brother Theo

After 1890 the work Vincent van Gogh had not sold passed to his brother Theo. Theo's widow, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, sold many paintings to spread knowledge of his art and organized exhibitions in the Netherlands and abroad. Her son Vincent Willem van Gogh inherited the collection in 1925.

A museum

The state foundation took the collection in 1962, and the museum opened in 1973

In 1962 the collection was transferred to the state-initiated Vincent van Gogh Foundation. The Dutch government commissioned the architect Gerrit Rietveld in 1963 to design a museum. The building was not completed until 1973. The Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa added an exhibition wing in 1998 and 1999.

The collection

The largest Van Gogh collection in the world holds 200 paintings

The museum houses the largest Van Gogh collection in the world, with 200 paintings, 400 drawings, and 700 letters by the artist. The main exhibition follows the phases of his life, from Nuenen to Auvers-sur-Oise. It includes nine self-portraits and some of his earliest paintings, dating back to 1882.

700letters by the artist in the collection

The attic

A painting found in a Norwegian attic was unveiled in 2013

On 9 September 2013 the museum unveiled a long-lost painting that had spent years in a Norwegian attic, believed to be by another painter. Sunset at Montmajour can be dated to the exact day it was painted, because Van Gogh described it in a letter to his brother Theo: 4 July 1888.

Thefts

Twenty paintings were stolen in 1991 and found 35 minutes later

In 1991 twenty paintings were stolen, among them The Potato Eaters. The thieves escaped from the building, but 35 minutes later all the paintings were recovered from an abandoned car. Two paintings stolen in 2002 were discovered in a villa in Italy in September 2016.

35 minutesuntil the stolen paintings were recovered in 1991