Amsterdam museum weekend

22-23 June sees a major weekend celebration to mark the reopening of Amsterdam’s three major museums, the Rijksmuseum, the Stedelijk and the Van Gogh at the Museumplein hub. There will be late-night openings, free of charge admission and special guided tours, as well as concerts at the two concert halls in the same area of town.

The Van Gogh museum reopened on 1 May after less than a year at the Hermitage Amsterdam while its traditional home on Museumplein was overhauled. The Rijksmuseum reopened in April after a major remodeling which took the best part of a decade and the Stedelijk opened with its new design in September 2012.

The current exhibition at the Van Gogh is Van Gogh at Work, which is the result of eight years’ work and research and presents about 200 works by Van Gogh and his contemporaries. The exhibition runs until January 2014.

The temporary relocation of part of the Van Gogh collection to the Hermitage Amsterdam on one of Amsterdam’s main canals appears to have been a success, with more Dutch visitors than usual during its seven-month’s stay. The Hermitage Amsterdam is a branch of the hermitage in St Petersburg and is located at Amstel 51 in a beautiful reconversion of what was a home for elderly women.