HERE TO STAY’ EXTENDED UNTIL 29TH AUGUST 2021

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is home to the largest collection of artworks by Vincent van Gogh in the world. The museum has been closed since March 2020 due to Covid-19 restrictions, but you can go online and visit some of the exhibitions virtually. The exhibition Here to Stay has been extended until 29th August 2021 and features works acquired by the museum during the last ten years. For people to view online, the museum has released a selection of the key works and stories from the exhibition. 

‘Here To Stay’ Exhibition

Celebrating a decade of remarkable acquisitions and the stories behind them, Here To Stay features everything from paintings and drawings to prints, sculptures and letters. Most of these pieces are not by Van Goch but by his contemporaries. They include renowned artists such as Edvard Munch, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Claude Monet and Edgar Degas plus lesser-known people that include Henri Guérard and Adolphe Appian.

Importantly, the stories behind the acquisitions of these works play a fundamental role. The curators have given a glimpse behind the scenes – they explain the importance of why museums collect, why it is so important that they continue to do so, and they also offer their personal experience with the artworks.

These stories also include people from outside of the museum who help portray the journey. For Here to Stay, collectors, museum supporters and 10 Amsterdam residents were invited to reveal their favourite acquisitions from the past decade. Different perspectives on individual works are illustrated by a range of different people, including an older resident of the Museum Quarter, a secondary school student, a youth worker from the District of Nieuw-West and the Amsterdam City poet.

Supporters of the museum and the Here to Stay exhibition include the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the BankGiro Loterij, Van Lanschot and ASML. Further assistance was given by the Rembrandt Association, the Mondriaan Fonds, the Prins Bernard Cultuurfonds, the VSBfonds, the Triton Collection Foundation, the Turing Foundation, the members of The Yellow House, Mr and Mrs Cheung Chung Kiu, Mr Christopher Drake, and various other anonymous supporters.

Until the museum reopens to the public, Here to Stay can be visited virtually via the museum’s website. The preview that includes a selection of artworks from the exhibition invites visitors to ‘walk’ – just like an actual museum visit, allowing them to come face-to-face with the artworks online. The various perspectives – which play such a key role in the exhibition are illuminated throughout the preview. When viewing Félix Vallotton’s print series Intimités (1897-1898) for example, visitors can select the story of curator Fleur, who describes the work as a ‘ten-round boxing match between the sexes’, or an alternative perspective from Hans-Martijn, the storage facility manager, who describes the special significance of the artwork to him, as it was the very first piece that he was allowed to put on display in the museum. We look forward to seeing the Van Goch Museum re-open along with all the other wonderful museums and galleries around the world.

Van Gogh Museum
Museumplein 6, Amsterdam

Words by Ian Cole, Editor-in-Chief

Top banner image credit: Vincent van Gogh, ‘Pollard Willow’, July 1882, pencil, brown ink, watercolour, chalk, on paper, 38 x 55.8 cm, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (purchased with support from the BankGiro Loterij, The Vincent van Gogh Foundation, the Rembrandt Association and her Prints and Drawings Fund, the Mondriaan Fund and the VSB Foundation)