Van Gogh Museum

The Van Gogh Museum is a museum dedicated to the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, on the Paulus Potterstraat and the Museumplein in Amsterdam, in the Zuid district.
The collection of the museum contains more than two hundred paintings, five hundred drawings and seven hundred letters from Vincent van Gogh, as well as his collection of Japanese prints, and the library comprises more than 23,000 works.

Only two of Van Gogh's paintings were sold by Vincent van Gogh. After his death, Vincent left his complete work to his younger brother, Theo van Gogh. At Theo's death the collection passed into the hands of his widow, Jo van Gogh-Bonger.
She sold a number of works, but kept a collection that was representative of Van Gogh's oeuvre. After her death in 1925, the artworks came into the possession of her son Vincent Willem van Gogh.

In 1960, he founded the Vincent van Gogh Foundation. In addition to himself and his wife, his three living children also had a seat in the foundation, as well as a representative of the Dutch government.
On 21 July 1962 an agreement was signed between the State of the Netherlands and the Vincent van Gogh Foundation.
The Van Gogh family contributed the entire collection, consisting of 200 paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, 400 drawings, and all letters from Vincent, to the state for 15 million guilders. The most important condition was that the entire collection would be housed in a museum dedicated to Van Gogh.

This laid the foundation for the Van Gogh Museum. The museum opened its doors in 1973 with Emile Meijer as its first director.
At the time it was a national museum, nowadays the museum is an independent foundation and the paintings are part of the national collection.