Van Gogh Museum
Paulus Potterstraat 7
P.O. Box 75366
1070 AJ Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel: 020-570 52 00
Fax: 020-570 5 222
info@vangoghmuseum.nl
http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam first opened its doors in 1973. The building, designed by Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld, houses the world's largest collection of works by Vincent van Gogh: some 200 paintings, 500 drawings and 700 letters, as well as the artist's own collection of Japanese prints. The collection originally belonged to Theo van Gogh (1857–1891), Vincent's younger brother. Following Theo's death, it passed to his widow, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger. Although a number of works were sold, she retained a major group, representing all phases of Van Gogh's oeuvre. On her death in 1925, her son, Vincent Willem van Gogh, inherited the collection. In 1962, on the initiative of the Dutch state, he transferred the works to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation. They are now on permanent loan to the Van Gogh Museum and form the nucleus of its collection. The museum also has a large collection of works by other nineteenth-century artists: contemporaries and friends of Van Gogh—among them Paul Gauguin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec—as well as by a number of older artists he admired, such as Léon Lhermitte and Jean-François Millet. A great many of these works were collected by the Van Gogh brothers. Their original collection has been complemented through acquisitions and long-term loans from other institutions.

Welcoming the Stedelijk Museum

12 January to 15 April 2007

While the Stedelijk Museum is undergoing extensive renovation, the Van Gogh Museum has been offering an annual selection of prints and drawings circa 1900 from the Stedelijk Museum collection. This is the third presentation in the series.

Van Gogh's Friends

20 April to 8 July 2007

This presentation features drawings by artists from Van Gogh's circle of friends. These include painters who later acquired fame, including Paul Gauguin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, but also others who largely forgotten today, such as Hans Olaf Heyerdahl and Meijer de Haan.

Van Gogh's Drawings: New Insights

13 July to 7 October 2007

This presentation coincides with the publication of the fourth and final volume of the catalogues of drawings by Van Gogh at the Van Gogh Museum. Years of research into these works have led to the new insights which are examined and explained in this show.
 

Barcelona 1900

21 September 2007 to 20 January 2008

The fame that Barcelona enjoys today is due, in large part, to its dynamic golden age at the close of the 19th century. Young artists such as Pablo Picasso, Isidre Nonell and Ramon Casas made their mark and connected modernism with a passion for social issues in their art. A massive development of the city took place, based on the designs of civil engineer Ildefonso Cerdà. It is one of the most advanced architectural innovations and still an important example for modern architects. In that same period, the fantastic architecture of Antonio Gaudí and Lluís Domènech i Montaner lent Barcelona an entirely new look.

The exhibition gives an impression of the city's artistic diversity and takes the viewer on a tour of Barcelona, from Las Ramblas via Palau de la Música Catalana to Gaudí's Sagrada Família. Along the way paintings, drawings and sculpture, in addition to furniture, jewelry and architectural models provide an idea of the tumultuous, amazing development that Barcelona experienced between 1880 and 1909.The exhibition is organized in collaboration with guest curator Teresa-M. Sala of the University of Barcelona.

Welcoming the Rijksmuseum

12 October 2007 to 6 January 2008

The Rijksmuseum's print room is also an annual guest at the Van Gogh Museum while the Rijksmuseum undergoes a major renovation with a selection from its collection of 19th-century prints and drawings. This presentation is the third in the series.

Research program

The Van Gogh Museum supports an active program of research and publications based around its collections making information about Van Gogh and his contemporaries available to the academic world and the public at large. Quality, coordination and cooperation with respected Dutch and international research institutes and museums are the themes of this extensive research program.

Some of the more prominent projects include the catalogues of the museum's collection which contain the most up-to-date research on all the paintings, prints and drawings by Vincent van Gogh in the museum; an extensive project investigating Van Gogh's techniques and studio practices; and the Van Gogh letters project. Since 1994 the museum has been collaborating with the Huygens Institute in The Hague on a scholarly edition of the complete correspondence of Vincent van Gogh. The letters project is currently nearing completion.

Van Gogh's studio practice

Hidden colors: red, yellow and blue in the early paintings of Vincent van Gogh

29 September 2006 to 7 October 2007

Together with Shell Nederland and Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (ICN), the Van Gogh Museum is conducting a technical and scholarly investigation into the way Van Gogh worked in his studio in the context of contemporary practice. Displays in the showcase on the second floor of the Rietveld building provide insights into the results of this research in a series of alternating presentations.

Museum Catalogues

Vincent van Gogh's paintings and his works on paper at the Van Gogh Museum (most of which are owned by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation) are being catalogued in a series of eight volumes. Four of these have already appeared: three on his drawings (to 1888), and one on his early paintings.

A catalogue of the drawings dating from Van Gogh's period at Arles, St Rémy and Auvers-sur-Oise (Drawings IV) is planned for 2006; a survey of the paintings Van Gogh produced in Antwerp and Paris (Paintings II) is set to appear in the same year.

Researchers: Ella Hendriks, Drs Louis van Tilborgh, Drs Marije Vellekoop, Drs Roelie Zwikker

Drawings IV

For the Drawings IV collection catalogue research on the drawings Van Gogh made at Arles, St Rémy and Auvers-sur-Oise is ongoing. It focuses on:

• matters relating to dating
• changes in style and technique
• types of paper and watermarks
• drawing materials
• topography
• the influence of Japanese prints
• how the drawings and paintings relate
• links between drawings and quotations in letters
• Each drawing's provenance is established, and literary references and exhibition data are compiled.

Researchers: Dr. Marije Vellekoop, Dr. Roelie Zwikker

Paintings II

For the museum catalogue Paintings II research is being conducted into the paintings Van Gogh produced in Antwerp and Paris. Principal themes include: matters relating to dating, changes in style and technique, studio practice and sources of learning.

Researchers: Ella Hendriks, Dr. Louis van Tilborgh
Assistant: Dr. Jan Gorm Madsen

Letters Project

Since 1995 the Van Gogh Museum and the Constantijn Huygens Institute in The Hague have been preparing a new edition of the complete correspondence of Vincent van Gogh. In this first edition for an international public, around 600 Dutch and some 300 French letters are to be published in the original language alongside a parallel English translation based on a new examination of the original manuscripts.
Planned publication: 2009

Researchers: Dr. Leo Jansen, Dr. Hans Luijten, Dr. Nienke Bakker
Contact: lettersproject@vangoghmuseum.nl

Van Gogh's Studio Practice in Context

Key topics of the Van Gogh's Studio Practice Project studied within this project include the composition and deterioration of painting. Together these projects have provided significant new insights into Van Gogh's studio practice.

The project may result in a new vision of nineteenth-century studio practice, and enable an art-historical reconstruction of Van Gogh's working methods. The project is projected to continue until October 2009.

Project leaders: Sjraar van Heugten, Ella Hendriks
Researchers: René Boitelle, Roelie Zwikker

TECHNICAL AND CONSERVATION RESEARCH

Van Gogh's Inks

In collaboration with the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (Amsterdam), researchers from the Van Gogh Museum are trying to obtain more information about the various sorts of ink that Van Gogh used in his drawings from the years 1888-1890; the pigments they contained; and the original color of the inks. An inventory is also being made of the inks available in Van Gogh's day and a comparison is made between the inks Van Gogh used and those of his contemporaries.

Project leader: Drs Marije Vellekoop
Researchers: Drs Roelie Zwikker, Nico Lingbeek, Han Neevel (ICN), Ad Stijnman (ICN)

De Mayerne Project

Since July 2002, the Van Gogh Museum has carried out the Painting Materials of Van Gogh Project.

This project covers four main sub-topics:

1) The Red Lake Project
2) The deterioration of chrome yellow pigments
3) Van Gogh's canvases and the impact of past wax lining treatments
4) Study of French archival sources relating to late nineteenth-century paintings materials.

Project leader: Ella Hendriks
Other principal researchers: Stéphanie Constantin (post-doc), Beatrice Marino (PhD candidate)

Lectures

Sunday 22 April 2007:

"Seeing Visions, Painting Visions: Piety, Hysteria, Nationalism and Avant-Gardism in Fin-de-Siècle France."
By Richard Thomson, Watson Gordon Professor of Fine Arts, University of Edinburgh.

Third-Republic France set great store by its commitment to rational thought and scientific progress. It comes as something of a surprise, therefore, to find how persistently artists represented images of dreams and visions. Discussing painters as different as Paul Gauguin and Edouard Detaille, Henri Martin and Emile Bernard, this lecture will demonstrate the widely shared fascination with the visionary that linked psychologist and croyant, avant-gardist and Salonnier.
The lecture is in English.