9 Vincent van Gogh Paintings to See Around the World

New York, MoMA

Perhaps Van Gogh’s most famous masterpiece, The Starry Night, is on view at the MoMA, in New York City. But, despite its fame, many may not know that van Gogh produced it while staying at a mental asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France.

Paris, Musée d’Orsay

This portrait of the artist Eugène Boch is one of several van Goghs’ shown at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. When van Gogh met Boch, he wrote to his brother, Théo, that he was struck by Boch’s "distinctive face, like a razor blade, and his green eyes," according to the Musée d’Orsay.

Jerusalem, The Israel Museum

Corn Harvest in Provence, at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, is one of Van Gogh’s many landscapes of quaint, idyllic scenes in the French countryside. The use of bold brushstrokes is a classic Van Gogh technique.

Tokyo, Bridgestone Museum of Art, Ishibashi Foundation

The Bridgestone Museum of Art in Tokyo has a collection of several different prominent modern artists, including Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. The windmill depicted in this landscape, Le Moulin de Blute-Fin, still stands today.

Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

Like The Starry Night, van Gogh painted this landscape while staying in a mental asylum. If incredibly painful for him personally, the time he spent at Saint-Rémy proved to be one the most fruitful years of his career – he painted several of his most famous, mesmerizing landscapes within the walls of his room, most of which were symbolic of the turbulent times he was facing. The contrasts of blurred lightness and darkness serving as interpretations as both the view from his window and his perspective at the time.

Rotterdam, Museum Bojimans Van Beuningen

Van Gogh was experimenting with Impressionist techniques when he completed this landscape, which currently hangs in Rotterdam. This particular painting uses brighter colors than his work was generally accustomed to at that time. The blueness that peeks out from the trees and the highlights of the tree foliage is a clear example of the artists transition into a new style of painting. In the Netherlands, his work was more Realist and used a gloomy color palette. In France, under the influence of the Impressionists, he brought brighter colors into his work. Van Gogh started Poplars near Neunen in the Netherlands and finished it in France, so you can see characteristics of both periods in the painting.

Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales

There are lots of amazing Impressionist-era paintings hanging at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, where this portrait currently lives. Head of a Peasant is one of forty peasants’ portraits Van Gogh completed in Neunen. The series’ portraits share similar qualities: dark, dreary colors and a bleak atmosphere. Judging from the tone of this series, it seems that Van Gogh may have sympathized with the poor conditions of peasant workers.

Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza is one of Spain’s premiere art museums, and their collection contains examples from Van Gogh’s many different artistic phases. Les Vessenots in Auvers is a classic example of the kind of work he made in later life. Shortly before he died, he produced many beautiful outdoor landscapes such as this one.

Sao Paulo, MASP - Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand

Established in 1947, MASP is Brazil’s first modern art museum. In addition to holding modern art from Brazil itself, the museum also carries a huge range of European works, including this Van Gogh portrait of a schoolboy. The painting has many of Van Gogh’s signature touches and shows his love of loud, vibrant colors and striking contrasts mixed with a sense of imagination where models never stayed completely true to form. This particular painting is part of a series of which the entire Roulin Family agreed to sit for him, an opportunity Van Gogh quickly grasped.

Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum

Being a Dutch painter, it makes sense that the largest collection of Van Gogh artworks resides in Amsterdam. Oil paintings and drawings from every one of his different periods are on view here. You can see The Potato Eaters, from his Neunen phase, named after his time spent in the Netherlands which saw a darker, more sullen canvas of colors.

Another such work worth mentioning which can be seen at the museum is the Courtesan: After Eisen, from his “Japonisme” phase. The second half of the 19th century saw an increased interest in Japanese art in the west. Though this influence did not have a strong following in the Netherlands, it was instead all the rage among Parisians, with Van Gogh being no exception. His work was heavily influenced by Japanese printmaking and considered them masterpieces of the East, very much mirroring their style.

The ever famous The Bedroom and Sunflowers, is also on display in the Van Gogh Museum and is from his Arles phase, a term coined after his stay in Arles France known for its direct sunlight and picture-perfect landscapes. In a letter to his brother Theo on October 16, 1888, Van Gogh describes his inspiration of the painting, writing, “…I had a new idea in my head and here is the sketch of it. […] This time it's just simply my bedroom, only here color is to do everything, and giving by its simplification a grander style to things, is to be suggestive here of rest or of sleep in general. In a word, looking at the picture ought to rest the brain, or rather the imagination.”

Van Gogh was multifaceted as a painter and a historical figure. As you can see, there is more to the artist than The Starry Night, and you don’t have to be just in New York or Paris to see one of his masterpieces.