![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/4JI70A5_AFP__20260915__C8DJ6LC__v2__HighRes__NetherlandsArtExhibitionVanGogh_jpg.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nA Dutch museum has put a collection of 88 paintings by Vincent van Gogh on display for the first time since 1984, in an exhibition featuring masterpieces such as The Potato Eaters.<\/p>\n
The Kroller-Muller museum in the central Netherlands holds one of the world’s largest private collections of paintings by the 19th century Dutch master, but they are rarely displayed together.<\/p>\n
“Seeing the work of Van Gogh is always special, but 88 together, I don’t think it has happened before in this century,” museum director Benno Tempel told AFP in an interview.<\/p>\n
“The funny thing is with a museum collection is that you have a lot of paintings, you have a lot of artworks, but you don’t show all of them,” he said.<\/p>\n
Usually many of the works are out on loan, undergoing restoration or research, or absent for education purposes, explained Tempel.<\/p>\n
“So, in our case, it was a rare chance that all of a sudden all the 88 paintings by Van Gogh were in our house at the same time,” he told AFP.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A visitor looks at “The Potato Eaters” by Vincent van Gogh during the exhibition “Van Gogh, All Our Paintings” at the Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo.<\/p>\n
Vincent Jannink<\/p>\n
Alongside The Potato Eaters, the artist’s world-famous depiction of peasant life from 1885, the exhibition includes Terrace of a Cafe at Night (1888) and The Old Tower at Nuenen (1884).<\/p>\n
Even the staff at the museum had never seen all the paintings together, said Tempel.<\/p>\n
“For us it’s an enormous, beautiful experience. It’s overwhelming,” said the 54-year-old.<\/p>\n
‘Biggest stars’<\/p>\n
The exhibition has been organised around the theme of the three divine virtues: faith, hope and love.<\/p>\n
These themes “give you more insight not only into Van Gogh’s life, but also into his development as an artist”, curator Renske Cohen Tervaert told AFP.<\/p>\n
The goal of the exhibition is not to repeat the myths about the famously tortured artist, she explained.<\/p>\n
The museum aims to explore “more about the reason he wanted to become an artist… and how he managed to use his paintings as a message, as a method of compassion and trying to help other people.”<\/p>\n
The post-Impressionist painter is among the most celebrated and prolific artists in history, having created around 900 paintings over a short career.<\/p>\n
He produced many of his best-known works during his time in France, where he painted masterpieces including the famous “Sunflowers” series and a number of well-known self-portraits.<\/p>\n
The artist died in 1890 at the age of 37, two days after shooting himself in the chest following well-documented mental health struggles.<\/p>\n
Most of the works acquired in Tuesday’s exhibition, entitled ‘Van Gogh, All Our Paintings’, were acquired by the museum’s founder Helene Kroller-Muller between 1908 and 1930.<\/p>\n
Tervaert said she was honoured her museum was able to put on such an exhibit, which is roughly double the number of paintings normally on display there.<\/p>\n
She said it was also an important event for the Netherlands, where she believes the artist achieves less fame than he does abroad.<\/p>\n
“I mean, he’s one of our biggest stars,” said the 46-year-old.<\/p>\n
German tourist Barbara Brandt, 73, was certainly impressed as she toured the museum.<\/p>\n
“It’s extraordinary to look at all these pictures in one place,” she told AFP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Dutch museum has put a collection of 88 paintings by Vincent van Gogh on display for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-602180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}