Where to see Vincent van Gogh’s paintings around the world

It’s hard to believe Vincent van Gogh was under appreciated during his lifetime.

Today, the Post-Impressionist Dutch painter is an art world titan, beloved for his dramatic brushstrokes, expressive color usage and visceral connection to nature. When museums exhibit his paintings, crowds flock through the door. 

Over 12 million people have seen Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience since it started touring internationally in 2017. In January 2025, a Van Gogh exhibit at London’s National Gallery broke attendance records, drawing 334,589 visitors. His legacy goes beyond gallery walls: it’s printed on tote bags, cut into puzzle pieces, transformed into high fashion and immortalized on screen (watch the Oscar-nominated At Eternity’s Gate). 

Paintings like The Starry Night aren’t the only thing stoking this affection for Van Gogh – his tumultuous story is equally captivating. Van Gogh started painting at 27 and produced over 2000 works in a decade; a career that was sadly cut short by his suicide in 1890. Despite this extensive artistic output, he died penniless and largely unknown. Fame arrived posthumously. 

His canvases now hang in major international museums. Self-portraits gaze at visitors in Basel and Detroit. He’s got a Night Cafe in New Haven, a windmill in Buenos Aires and Christian-themed work in the Vatican. His Sunflowers bloom in Tokyo, Munich and Philadelphia; Irises pop in Los Angeles; Roses bud in DC.

The best exhibits peek beneath the paint, revealing the man behind the masterpieces. Here are the greatest permanent Van Gogh collections with stories to tell – and temporary shows worth seeing in 2026. 

1. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Immerse yourself in all things Van Gogh at this Dutch institution, home to the world’s largest collection of his work. The Van Gogh Museum owns over 200 paintings, 500 drawings and many of Vincent’s letters – plus a collection devoted to art-world contemporaries like Paul Gauguin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. You’ll also find rotating exhibits and accessible programming, including a tour where visually impaired visitors can feel 3D prints of famous paintings.

The permanent exhibit narrates Van Gogh’s short, astounding career like a paint-splashed biography. It starts with unrefined sketches from his early years, then moves to his first masterpiece, The Potato Eaters (1885), depicting the raw realities of peasant life in the Dutch countryside. You can sense his macabre humor in Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette (1886), which he created as a student in Antwerp, and see the influence of Parisian Pointillists in his riotously colorful Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat (1887–88).

The canvases then follow Van Gogh’s move to Arles, where he lived in The Yellow House (1888) while painting Sunflowers (1889) – and on to his infamous post-ear-cutting recuperation in St-Rémy, where he depicted the Garden of the Asylum (1889) with ominous ochres and grays. Two of his final paintings provide a somber coda: Wheatfield with Crows (1890), with its forbidding birds, and Tree Roots, gnarled by plant life struggling to break free.

Top tip: While visiting the Dutch capital, don’t miss the encyclopedic Rijksmuseum, where Van Gogh’s View of Amsterdam from Central Station (1885) is currently on display.

2. Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo

The world’s second-largest Van Gogh collection (with 91 paintings and 180 drawings) is just over two hours from Amsterdam by train, set within the 5500-hectare Hoge Veluwe National Park – a wild oasis echoing the artist’s vivid landscapes.

Much like the Van Gogh Museum, the Kröller-Müller collection showcases Vincent’s artistic evolution from dark Dutch canvases to French flamboyance – but without Amsterdam's crowds. It’s all displayed in the Van Gogh Gallery, outfitted with nearly 40 canvases. Highlights include one of his oldest-known paintings (Still Life With Straw Hat, 1881) and one of his first experiments with indigo skies, now synonymous with his work (Terrace of a Café at Night, 1888).

Tip your hat to trend-setting art collector and museum founder Helene Kröller-Müller (1869–1939) for the impressive assemblage. The German shipping heiress recognized Van Gogh’s talent long before the rest of the world caught on.

Top tip: Book a Podcatcher audio tour (available in eight languages) to hear stories about the paintings while moving through the museum at your leisure.

3. Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Chugging through this train station–turned–art depot is like attending a party with the world’s best Post-Impressionists. All the big names are present – including Van Gogh, who takes pride of place in Rooms 36 and 37.

Seeing the Musée d’Orsay’s collection of 19th-century Parisian painters places visitors in Van Gogh’s shoes. After moving to Paris in 1886, he experienced an artistic awakening. Friendships with painters like Émile Bernard and Toulouse-Lautrec influenced his work, inspiring Van Gogh to experiment with the loose brushstrokes and light colors that were favorite techniques of French contemporaries.

After spending time with the inky La Nuit étoilée (also called Starry Night Over the Rhône, 1888) and the absinthe-green Portrait de l’artiste (1889), check out Van Gogh’s other portraiture – including Le Docteur Paul Gachet (1890), depicting the physician and amateur printmaker who treated Van Gogh during his last weeks alive.

Top tip: If you enjoy Van Gogh’s portraits, head to the nearby Musée Rodin to see his playful, Japanese-inspired painting of friend Père (Julien) Tanguy, a Parisian art shop owner.

4. National Gallery, London

Crowds at the sprawling National Gallery go ga-ga for Van Gogh’s dazzling gold Sunflowers (1888) in Room 43. Yellow light beams from the canvas, and luscious brushstrokes make the bouquet seem like fresh-cut flowers, still alive.

The painting’s backstory is less idyllic. During the summer Van Gogh painted Sunflowers, he invited fellow painter and friend Paul Gauguin to stay with him in Arles. But bunking together wasn’t the best idea. After two months, the artists got into an argument, ending with Gauguin fleeing to Paris and Van Gogh slicing off his own ear. It was the last time the two painters crossed paths in real life.

Gauguin eventually wrote Van Gogh, requesting the precious sunflower painting. Van Gogh created a copy instead – but never sent it. The original Sunflowers now hangs in the National Gallery; the copy hangs in the Van Gogh Museum.

These aren’t the only Gauguin–Van Gogh companion pieces split between museums. Van Gogh’s Chair (also 1888, owned by the National) depicts the artist’s simple peasant seat. Gauguin’s Chair (painted the same year, now hanging in Amsterdam) depicts his friend’s polished-wood throne. While the sitters might be gone, their contentious friendship lives on in paint.

Top tip: Lean into Van Gogh’s ear-y drama by dropping by London’s Courtauld Gallery to see Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear (1889), highlighting his artistic strength through his mental struggles.

5. Museum of Modern Art, New York City

There’s a reason roughly three million people visit MoMA each year to admire The Starry Night (1889, on Floor 5). Van Gogh’s celestial scene – arguably his most famous work – is hypnotic, radiating rings of light above a fairy-tale depiction of St-Rémy-de-Provence. There’s also something poetic about seeing Van Gogh’s depiction of darkness in the city that never sleeps. Much like New York's night owls, Van Gogh was enthralled by darkness. In 1888, he wrote to his brother Theo, “It often seems to me that the night is much more alive and richly colored than the day.”

Van Gogh painted this canvas from his bedroom in the St-Paul-de-Mausole asylum – where he spent a year seeking respite from his mental illness. Making art, it seemed, was a remedy for his symptoms, and he threw himself into work whenever possible.

While waiting your turn to glimpse the glittering stars, take in neighboring artworks, like Van Gogh’s flower-backed portrait of Joseph Roulin, the bearded postal employee he befriended in Arles.

Top tip: Beat MoMA’s crowds at NYC’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, home to an exceptional collection of Van Goghs you won’t have to fight mobs to see, including a sunny portrait of Roulin’s baby (1888, gallery 955) and the blustery Wheat Field with Cypresses (1889, Gallery 822).

6. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

Chicago’s premier fine-arts fortress holds about a dozen Van Goghs, eight of which can be seen on display in Gallery 241. There’s The Bedroom (1889), one of three paintings he made of his sleeping quarters in Arles, and Madame Roulin Rocking the Cradle (1889), one of five lovingly maternal paintings he made of Augustine Roulin. The Drinkers (1890), a green-tinted commentary on aging and alcohol, is particularly gripping. On days when Van Gogh was too sick to leave the asylum, he’d copy the work of other artists – in this example, a wood engraving by Honoré Daumier.

The collection here is made more dynamic by what surrounds it. The Pointillist technique employed in Georges Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1884, Gallery 240) contextualizes the tiny dots of color in Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait (1887), just as the treatment of water in Paul Signac’s Les Andelys, Côte d’Aval (1886, Gallery 240) ripples into Van Gogh’s Fishing in Spring, the Pont de Clichy (Asnières) (1887).

Top tip: The Roulin family shows up repeatedly in Van Gogh’s work – and also in the must-see biopic Loving Vincent (2017), an animated film following Armand Roulin (son of Joseph and Augustine) as he tries reconstructing the final weeks of Van Gogh’s life.

Temporary Van Gogh Exhibits in 2026

Of the museums temporarily showcasing Van Gogh works in 2026, these are the standouts worth planning a trip around. 

In Treviso, Italy, the Museo Santa Caterina is presenting From Picasso to Van Gogh until May 10. The show, on loan from Ohio’s Toledo Museum, is a meditation on everything from Abstraction to Impressionism, drawing a line between Van Gogh and greats like Picasso and Matisse. 

At the Philadelphia Museum of Art, this summer is sunflower season. Van Gogh’s Sunflowers: A Symphony in Blue and Yellow (June 6 to October 11), will place the National Gallery’s Sunflowers (1888) next to an 1889 rendition from the Pennsylvania museum’s collection. 

In Japan, the traveling Grand Van Gogh Exhibition, featuring 37 paintings and 20 drawings on loan from the Kröller-Müller Museum, will make stops at the Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art (until May 10) and Tokyo’s Ueno Royal Museum (May 29-August 12). 

Autumn will be a particularly fantastic time to see Van Gogh in his birth country, the Netherlands. Once the Japan tour wraps up, the Kröller-Müller Museum will present Van Gogh, All Our Paintings (September 12-January 3), showcasing the museum’s entire 88-piece collection for the first time since 1984. 

Top tip: If you want to be enveloped by digital images of the Dutchman’s work, Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience is still touring select cities in the US and Europe. Just remember – nothing compares to seeing the painter's brush strokes in real life.