World’s Largest Van Gogh Collection Faces Uncertain Future

Since 1973, Vincent van Gogh masterpieces including his beloved sunflowers, wistful wheatfields, and self-portraits have been housed in Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum. The institution was established via a historic 1962 agreement between the painter’s nephew and the Dutch government to ensure the long-term preservation of hundreds of paintings, drawings, and letters comprising van Gogh’s oeuvre.

Now, the museum says that the collection’s future is uncertain, citing a dispute with the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) over the funding for costly maintenance repairs and sustainability efforts mandated by the state. In a legal complaint, the institution claims that the Dutch government is violating its decades-old agreement by refusing to provide sufficient subsidies to cover the cost of the three-year, €104 million (~$121 million) project.

Under the Dutch Heritage Act, national museums, including the Van Gogh Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Kröller-Müller Museum, receive annual housing subsidies to help them maintain and preserve their collections. But the Van Gogh Museum says that this yearly government funding — currently €8,428,300 (~$9.8 million) — falls short of the more than €11 million (~$12.8 million) needed to help it finance much-needed renovations to its fire and security alarms, climate control system, and internal elevators leading to storage facilities, plus the sustainability upgrades required for all Dutch public buildings as of 2024.

“So far, the state of the museum has not directly affected the programming and operations,” a Van Gogh Museum spokesperson told Hyperallergic. “But it’s just a matter of time before it will become a major issue.” 

A spokesperson for OCW said that the ministry “maintains that the allocated housing subsidy is sufficient to cover the necessary maintenance cost.”

“This position is based on comprehensive research conducted by independent experts commissioned by the Ministry,” the spokesperson told Hyperallergic, noting that the subsidy is a “fixed amount” that is annually adjusted for inflation.

The museum did not disclose how the subsidy is calculated, but the OCW representative said that the same methodology is used for other national museums, citing the Rijksmuseum, which receives €37 million (~$43 million), and the Kröller-Müller Museum, which receives €9.8 (~$11.4 million).

For the past two years, the Van Gogh Museum has been negotiating with the government to increase this annual subsidy by €2.5 million (~$2.9 million) to no avail. 

If the institution does not come to a resolution soon, the museum says it may need to close its doors. The Van Gogh Foundation, established by the painter’s nephew, has also echoed concerns about the institution’s future and urged the Dutch government to abide by its obligations to protect the artist’s works as stipulated by the founding 1962 agreement.

The Van Gogh Museum houses the largest collection of works by the artist in the world, comprising over 200 paintings, 500 drawings, and 900 letters, as well as other works by the Dutch artist’s contemporaries and influences. Over the course of five decades, nearly 57 million people have visited the museum, with annual attendance reaching a peak of 2.6 million in 2017. Last year, the institution hosted five exhibitions, including a retrospective exploring van Gogh’s influence on the late Chinese-Canadian artist Matthew Wong and a show paying homage to French Impressionism.

The case is scheduled to be heard in court on February 19, the OCW spokesperson told Hyperallergic.

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