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The Van Gogh Museum Reaches Agreement on Renovation Budget

The Van Gogh Museum has reached a settlement with the Dutch government over the financing of the museum’s renovation, set to start in late 2028.

The Art Journal9 October, 2026
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. Photo: acediscovery, CC BY 4.0.

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. Photo: acediscovery, CC BY 4.0.

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam announced on 8 October that it had reached an agreement with the Dutch government over the budget required for a long-term renovation project.

The news follows nearly three years of negotiations and a legal dispute over museum’s public funding, after the institution asked for an additional €2.5 million a year on top of its existing €8.5m state subsidy. Tensions rose last year , when the museum’s director, Emilie Gordenker, warned of a situation that was ‘dangerous for the art and dangerous for our visitors’ in an interview with The New York Times.

Home to the largest Van Gogh collection with over 200 paintings, 500 drawings, and 700 letters, the museum opened in 1973. Under a 1962 agreement, the artist’s nephew Vincent Willem van Gogh transferred the family collection to the newly created Vincent van Gogh Foundation, and the Dutch state committed to building, funding and maintaining a permanent museum to house it.

Work is now scheduled to begin in autumn 2028 at a cost of about €104m, of which €76m covers maintenance and replacement, €23m sustainability measures and €5m further improvements. The museum expects to remain partially open throughout.

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