Van Gogh Museum

Vincent van Gogh died in 1890, and his paintings were left to his brother Theo. However, he died just six months later, and his wife Johanna preserved the paintings and letters from Vincent to his brother, which is why we now know so much about the artist's life. After her death in 1925, the collection was inherited by her son Vincent Willem van Gogh, who initially organized exhibitions at home, and from 1930, lent some works to the Amsterdam City Museum. Later, he considered the fate of the collection and proposed to the city authorities to build a Van Gogh Museum. The government allocated land next to the Rijksmuseum (the state museum) and the Stedelijk Museum (the city museum).

In 1963, the Dutch government commissioned Dutch architect and furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld to design the Van Gogh Museum buildings. The building was completed only in 1973. In 1998 and 1999, the building was renovated by Dutch architect Martin van Gorp, and Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa added an exhibition wing.

In 2010, the museum had 1,429,854 visitors, and in 2011 — 1,600,300.

The Van Gogh Museum has the largest collection of the artist's paintings in the world. It consists of 200 paintings, 400 drawings, and 700 letters. The main collection showcases various aspects of Vincent van Gogh's life and work.

The museum is divided according to the five most important stages of Van Gogh's career: early works, Paris, Arles, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, and Auvers. An attached building regularly hosts interesting exhibitions of private collections and museum archives.

The collection features many famous canvases, including "The Potato Eaters”, "Bedroom in Arles”, and one of the three versions of "Sunflowers”. The museum also organizes exhibitions on the theme of 19th-century art history.

The museum also operates a Van Gogh creativity laboratory and a library, recreating as closely as possible the environment in which he created.

The museum features famous artworks by Van Gogh's contemporaries from the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist movements. There are also sculptures by Auguste Rodin and Jules Dalou, as well as paintings by Emile Bernard, Maurice Denis, Kees van Dongen, Paul Gauguin, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Odilon Redon, Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.