Nine astonishing places to see Van Gogh’s paintings – The Art Newspaper

Most Van Gogh work in public collections are simply the place you may anticipate to see them, in main artwork galleries and the museum dedicated to the artist in Amsterdam. However there are some photos which have ended up in stunning or sudden locations. Right here, we single out 9.

Many are off the overwhelmed observe, so do verify that the Van Goghs will probably be on show earlier than travelling. And, as defined in entry quantity 9, you’d be very fortunate to see Cairo’s Van Gogh.

1. Hakone (Japan)

The Pola Museum is in Hakone, a forested space of nice magnificence 100 kilometres west of Tokyo. The journey to the museum by public transport is partly by a vertiginous mountain railway. Guests then descend into the dramatically designed museum via a glass-enclosed escalator to achieve the underground galleries. The architect was Nikken Sekke. Opened in 2002, the museum was funded by the Pola cosmetics firm.

The museum has three Van Gogh work, together with The Gleize Bridge over the Vigueirat Canal (March 1888) and Flower Vase with Thistles (June 1890). There’s a particular purpose to go this 12 months: an exhibition on Van Gogh’s affect on Japanese artists will open shortly, The Impression of Van Gogh: A Renewal of Ardour (31 Might-30 November). 

2. Vatican

The Vatican Museums is famend for his or her Renaissance masterpieces, however the establishment additionally has a group of Trendy and Modern Artwork in its advanced of historic buildings.

Among the many work is Van Gogh’s Pièta, which was impressed by a print by the French artist Eugène Delacroix (there may be one other painted model at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum). Depicting the useless Christ with the grieving Virgin, it was donated by the Catholic Archdiocese of New York in 1973, for the creation of the museum.

3. Honolulu

Hawaii may normally be related to tropical seashores, but it surely additionally hosts the Honolulu Museum of Artwork. Opened within the metropolis centre again in 1927, it’s famend for its assortment of Pacific and Asian artwork.

Honolulu has only one Van Gogh, however it’s a very high quality harvest scene painted in Arles: Wheat Subject (June 1888). It was donated in 1946 by the Cooke household, who established the museum.

4. Warsaw

Poland’s solely Van Gogh has not too long ago gone on show in a room 26 metres above the bottom within the dome of Warsaw’s Temple of Divine Windfall, which was inaugurated in 2016. The temple gives area for the Museum of John Paul II and Primate Wyszynski.

The Van Gogh is Nation Huts amongst Timber (September 1883), which was donated in 1987 to the Archdiocese of Warsaw by the Polish-born British collector Charles Carroll-Porczynski, a scientist who made his fortune within the chemical business. Catch the present Van Gogh show rapidly, because it closes on 27 April. After that the portray will go on mortgage to the Household House of John Paul II within the city of Wadowice, close to Krakow. The home turned a museum, run by the Sisters of the Holy Household of Nazareth, in 2014, 9 years after the demise of the Polish pope.

5. Tokyo

One in every of Van Gogh’s iconic Sunflower work is owned by a Japanese firm, Sompo insurance coverage. The portray was initially displayed in a gallery on the forty second flooring of its company headquarters in Tokyo, with dramatic views over town. In 2020 a brand new constructing was constructed with road entry for the Sompo Museum of Artwork.

Sunflowers (December 1888-January 1889) was purchased by Yasuda insurance coverage, which was later integrated into Sompo. In 1989, when it was acquired at Christie’s for £25m, it was by far the most costly art work ever offered at public sale. 

6. Otterlo (Netherlands)

The existence of the Kröller-Müller Museum is not going to come as a shock to Van Gogh aficionados, however those that have by no means visited it is probably not conscious of its uncommon setting. Positioned 80 kilometres east of Amsterdam, it sits in the course of a nationwide park. The closest village, Otterlo, is three kilometres away. The unique constructing, designed by Henry van de Velde and opened in 1938, has marvellous views of the encompassing heathland.

It’s greater than well worth the trek for its superlative Van Gogh assortment, which was amassed by Helene Kröller-Müller between 1908 and 1922. Throughout that point she acquired no fewer than 88 work and 172 drawings, making it by far the second biggest assortment of the artist’s works after that of Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum. The vital works embody a self-portrait (April-June 1887) and Café Terrace at Night time (September 1888). Take care if you go to: a lot of the gathering is being lent to exhibitions in Japan from September 2025 to August 2026, though a big variety of work will stay behind and on show. Van Gogh drawings are solely displayed often, for conservation causes.

7. Hiroshima (Japan)

Hiroshima has one of many best artwork galleries in Japan, created to mark town’s rejuvenation after its horrible destruction from the atomic bomb. Funded by the Hiroshima Financial institution, the museum opened in 1978 beneath the slogan “for love and peace”. The Hiroshima Museum of Artwork’s dome is modelled on the Atomic Bomb Dome, the remoted survival amid catastrophic losses.

Hiroshima’s Van Gogh is without doubt one of the artist’s final works, Daubigny’s Backyard (July 1890), painted in Auvers-sur-Oise (there may be one other model on long-term mortgage to the Kunstmuseum Basel). The image was purchased by the Hiroshima Financial institution from the widow of New York banker Siegfried Kramarsky in 1974. In a acutely aware effort to match the hues of Daubigny’s Backyard, inexperienced was later adopted because the museum’s symbolic color, and integrated into its emblem.

8. São Paulo

Solely two cities in South America have Van Goghs: the artwork museums in Buenos Aires (one portray) and São Paulo (4). What makes the Museu de Arte de São Paulo uncommon is its structure, and extra particularly its show. As an alternative of hanging on partitions, work are positioned in rows on the gallery flooring, mounted on what the museum calls “crystal easels”—glass stands on concrete bases. This distinctive design was launched by the Italian-born Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi when the constructing opened in 1968.

São Paulo’s 4 Van Goghs embody The Stone Bench within the Asylum at Saint-Rémy (November 1889). It depicts the backyard the place the artist would retreat to work and loosen up, escaping from these with whom he shared the asylum. The portray was purchased for the museum’s assortment in 1954.

9. Cairo

The Khalil Museum is one in every of Cairo’s surprises, housing an impressive assortment of Impressionist and Put up-Impressionist work. It was arrange by Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil, who inherited nice wealth and was a frequent customer to Paris, the place he purchased what turned an important non-public assortment of French Impressionism in Africa. He constructed his mansion (now the museum) by the Nile in 1915. After serving as Egypt’s minister for agriculture and president of the senate, Khalil died in 1953.

Sadly, that is the one place in our survey the place, for the second, you won’t be able to see a Van Gogh. Khalil’s Vase with Flowers (Summer season 1886) has been stolen twice. The primary time was in 1978, with the nonetheless life being recovered two years later after surfacing in Kuwait. The second theft was in 2010 and it is without doubt one of the few stolen Van Goghs that is still unrecovered. However even with out the Vase with Flowers, it’s a fascinating museum to go to, with over 100 French work hung in Khalil’s Nile-side villa.

Martin Bailey is a number one Van Gogh specialist and particular correspondent for The Artwork Newspaper. He has curated exhibitions on the Barbican Artwork Gallery, Compton Verney/Nationwide Gallery of Scotland and Tate Britain.

Martin has written quite a few bestselling books on Van Gogh’s years in France: The Sunflowers Are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh’s Masterpiece (Frances Lincoln 2013, UK and US), Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence (Frances Lincoln 2016, UK and US), Starry Night time: Van Gogh on the Asylum (White Lion Publishing 2018, UK and US) and Van Gogh’s Finale: Auvers and the Artist’s Rise to Fame (Frances Lincoln 2021, UK and US). The Sunflowers are Mine (2024, UK and US) and Van Gogh’s Finale (2024, UK and US) are additionally now out there in a extra compact paperback format.

His different latest books embody Dwelling with Vincent van Gogh: The Properties & Landscapes that formed the Artist (White Lion Publishing 2019, UK and US), which gives an summary of the artist’s life. The Illustrated Provence Letters of Van Gogh has been reissued (Batsford 2021, UK and US). My Pal Van Gogh/Emile Bernard gives the primary English translation of Bernard’s writings on Van Gogh (David Zwirner Books 2023, UKand US).

To contact Martin Bailey, please electronic mail vangogh@theartnewspaper.com

Please word that he doesn’t undertake authentications.

Discover all of Martin’s adventures with Van Gogh right here