Dutch Museum among the world’s greatest museums

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands is listed among the top 30 must-see museums in the world.

A recent article includes The Van Gogh Museum among the top 30 must-see museums in the world.

Patricia Schultz, author of the book, “1,000 Places to See Before You Die” ranks The Van Gogh Museum alongside such internationally celebrated art museums as The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Bilbao, Spain; The Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia; and The Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Vincent van Gogh was the 19th century’s most important Dutch painter, and he remains one of the world’s most popular artists long after his passing.

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, houses the world’s largest collection of works by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) such as; The potato eaters, Irises, Sunflowers, Wheatfield with crows and a number of self-portraits.

The collection includes over 200 paintings, 500 drawings and more than 700 letters from the artist as well as major works by other 19th-century artists such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Paul Gauguin.

The museum consists of two buildings: the main building, designed by Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld which houses the permanent collection, and the exhibition wing designed by Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa. The different parts of the architecture contrast with and complement each other: Kurokawa’s elliptical building enters into an absorbing dialogue with Rietveld’s functionalist design.

The Van Gogh Museum, however, isn’t the only unique museum on the list. Among the 30 selected by Schultz are such unusual institutions as the National Archeological Museum in Naples, Italy, The Kariye Museum in Istanbul and The International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.