Van Gogh Museum closing for 6 months

By Ankita Mehta | June 24 2011 6:59 AM

The Van Gogh Museum will be closed down for a span of six months starting next year, for renovation purpose.

REUTERS/Luke MacGrego

A visitor casts a shadow over Vincent Van Gogh's Self Portrait as an Artist 1888, during the launch of The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London January 19, 2010.

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The Dutch museum is the latest to close down for renovation.

“Friday the museum's most important paintings will move to the Hermitage Amsterdam so they can still be viewed during the work, scheduled to last from October 2012 through March 2013,” Museum’s new director Director Axel Rueger told local media.

Rijksmuseum and Stedelijk museums, which are located nearby the Van Gogh museum, have been undergoing renovations for years. Both the museums have kept their important collectionson display at some other place.

More than 1.5 million visitors visit the Van Gogh Museum each year. The museum was opened in 1973 on Amsterdam's central Museumplein.

The original building was designed by renowned Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld. The museum has around 200 paintings, 500 drawings and 700 letters, as well as the artist's own collection of Japanese prints, the world’s largest collection of works by Vincent Van Gogh. The museum also holds exhibitions on subjects that are related to 19th-century art history.