100 years of Van Gogh

In collaboration with the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, a major commemorative exhibition to celebrate the 100^th birthday of Vincent van Gogh is organized in 1953. This includes almost the entire oeuvre of the artist: all the works from ‘the collection of Mrs Kröller’, plus the former collection of Theo and Jo Van Gogh-Bonger, now owned by their son Vincent Willem van Gogh, and some loans from abroad. Otterlo is the first of three locations. The exhibition is opened by Queen Juliana.

The second exhibition in the framework of the Van Gogh memorial year was probably an idea of Jan Hendrik Reinink, secretary general of the Ministry of Education, Arts and Sciences. Franse tijdgenoten van Vincent van Gogh (French contemporaries of Vincent van Gogh) shows works of art created between 1881 and 1890 by the then avant-garde and which Van Gogh may have seen during his lifetime.

After this exhibition, Vincent Willem van Gogh loans his parents’ collection to the museum. In De verzameling van Theo van Gogh (The collection of Theo van Gogh), work is shown by artists including Breitner, Daumier, Corot, Gauguin, (Isaac) Israëls, Manet, Millet, Monticelli, Pissarro and Toulouse-Lautrec. Partly due to the efforts of the Ministry of Education, Arts and Sciences, this Van Gogh exhibition also travels to St. Louis, Philadelphia and Toledo (Ohio). More than 150,000 visitors see the work of Van Gogh in St. Louis alone.