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As we all know from GIFs of that one Dr. Who episode, Vincent Van Gogh was not an artist appreciated in his lifetime.

But now he has an entire museum dedicated to him! If you believe in ghosts that means everything worked out great because now he can watch all those people wait in line in the rain to see his paintings. Amsterdam is very rainy. The museum opened in 1973, a short 83 years after Van Gogh’s death. By 2013, the museum was the 35th most visited in the world, so hopefully little Van Ghost can move on to the other side. Be at peace, friend. Reunite with your ear.

Most of the pieces featured in the Van Gogh Museum are his unsold works. When Van Gogh died, he left the paintings to his brother, Theo. Theo died shortly after, presumably because he didn’t feel like dealing with all of his brother's stuff. Theo’s wife held onto them, though, and eventually they fell into the hands of their son, Van Gogh’s nephew, Vincent Willem van Gogh. Vincent Willem was the one to finally unload them to the Stedelijk Museum, until the Van Gogh museum was commissioned by the Dutch government.

Like the artist it was named for, the Van Gogh Museum has had its fair share of drama. In 1991, twenty paintings were stolen. (Pause for dramatic effect.) Thirty-five minutes later the paintings were found in an abandoned car, but three of the paintings were badly torn. The worst part…THE GUARDS WERE IN ON IT. This was an inside job! It’s so sad that art thieves have an easier time finding employment than most college grads. In 2002, two more paintings were stolen and never recovered. I don’t understand how people steal paintings. It’s not like you can hide it in your bag when no one is looking.

Good news! In 2013, the museum unveiled a long-lost painting that for years people thought was painted by someone else. Win some, lose some. If you can’t make it to Amsterdam or if you made it there but got too stoned to actually do anything, the Google Cultural Institute can give you a kind of almost similar experience.

 

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Here is what Wikipedia says about Van Gogh Museum

The Van Gogh Museum (

Dutch pronunciation: [vɑŋˈɣɔx mʏˌzeːjʏm]) is a Dutch art museum dedicated to the works of Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries in the Museum Square in Amsterdam South, close to the Stedelijk Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Concertgebouw. The museum opened on 2 June 1973, and its buildings were designed by Gerrit Rietveld and Kisho Kurokawa.

The museum contains the largest collection of Van Gogh's paintings and drawings in the world. In 2017, the museum had 2.3 million visitors and was the most-visited museum in the Netherlands, and the 23rd-most-visited art museum in the world. In 2019, the Van Gogh Museum launched the Meet Vincent Van Gogh Experience, a technology-driven "immersive exhibition" on Van Gogh's life and works, which has toured globally.

Check out the full Wikipedia article about Van Gogh Museum

Comments (1)

thinkstuff101

I would have thought that the Rijksmuseum should attract more visitors than the van Gogh museum. Interesting to think that some of his individual paintings are worth more than the entire building they are housed in.