Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

The Van Gogh Museum is a picture gallery devoted to Vincent van Gogh and his artistic circle. Its collection brings together about 200 paintings, 400 drawings, and 700 letters by Van Gogh, making this the world’s largest collection of his work. The complex is divided between a main building and an oval exhibition wing.

Gerrit Rietveld designed the main structure, while Kisho Kurokawa created the wing for major temporary exhibitions; Hans van Heeswijk and the practice Rietveld Van Dillen Van Tricht are also credited among the architects. The museum opened on 2 June 1973. Inside the main building, Van Gogh’s development is presented in chronological order, while works by contemporaries such as Monet, Gauguin, Seurat, and Toulouse-Lautrec place his art in a wider network.

The story behind the collection is remarkable: after Van Gogh’s death, his sister-in-law Johanna van Gogh-Bonger kept his work together and promoted it through exhibitions in the Netherlands and abroad. A painting found in a Norwegian attic, Sunset at Montmajour, was unveiled here in 2013 after being identified as Van Gogh’s work. It had been painted on 4 July 1888, a date known because Van Gogh described it in a letter to his brother Theo.