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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
Address:
Paulus Potterstraat 7
Amsterdam 1071 CX Netherlands
+31 20 570 5200
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Vondelpark
The Van Gogh Museum