The National Gallery of London concluded Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers on 19 January 2025, running since 14 September 2024, and with an extraordinary display of the museum’s efforts alongside the radiating work of Vincent, the space welcomed 334,589 visits, making it “most popular ever ticketed exhibition in National Gallery history.” Sir Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery, London, said,
“I am delighted that there have been over 330,000 visits to ‘Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers’. Van Gogh has become a talisman for passion, authenticity and commitment to his art. The paintings in this exhibition are among his most striking works and have a freshness and immediacy about them. The show presents Van Gogh as a very serious painter but his ‘lust for life’, as Irving Stone put it, remains evident and infectious.”
To corroborate the infectious presence of these visitors, the museum even extended its timeline to 24 hours for the last three days, further inviting the attendees to follow the footsteps of Lucian Freud, David Hockney, and Francis Bacon, who attended the museum in the early hours of the morning to take inspiration from its collection.
If we were to examine Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers’ demand, in comparison to the previous two most famous ticketed exhibitions- Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan (9 November 2011 ‒ 5 February 2012) and Velázquez (18 October 2006 ‒ 21 January 2007), it attracted 10,762 and 32,069 more visitors respectively. Further, as per the gallery, it is their seventh most visited exhibition (paid or free) since 1991, averaging 2,676 visits per day.
The exhibition was influential in bringing together the favorite paintings of Van Gogh and some of these are the ones that are rarely seen in public and further paired with his captivating drawings. It is as if missing it was missing the chance to see the comfort of Vincent and his uncompetitive hand at painting landscapes, not only unique for its time but too emotional to date.
While it is over now and the number of visitors it welcomed is an attractive yet tough target to achieve, the National Gallery has in the recent past seen over 100,000 visitors attending their NG Stories and Discover Constable and The Hay Wain exhibitions, and it is a remarkable chapter of the gallery’s mission to promote interest in culture, a motive that the Labour Party is working on so keenly. Following the 200 years of the National Gallery, there are several noteworthy events lined up for 2025, including Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300‒1350 (8 March ‒ 22 June 2025), José María Velasco A View of Mexico (20 March – 17 August 2025), the gallery’s first-ever event to feature the works of Neo-Impressionist such as Anna Boch, Jan Toorop, Paul Signac, and Georges Seurat, and more. Details for the same can be found on this page.
Featured Image: The Painter of Sunflowers: Portrait of Vincent van Gogh, 1888 by Paul Gauguin; Paul Gauguin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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