AMSTERDAM.- Joost van der Hoeven has been appointed as Head of the new Research Department as of 1 August 2026. Van der Hoeven joined the museum in 2015 and became a Researcher in 2019.

The former Collections & Research Department was split into two departments on August 1: Collections and Research. The Collections Department, which will continue to be headed by Marije Vellekoop, is responsible for the presentation and expansion of the collection, as well as for exhibition development. The new Research Department focuses on art-historical and technical research into Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries.

This new organisation aims to strengthen both key areas and achieve a better balance between the various departments within the Van Gogh Museum’s Collection Group, which includes the Collections and Research Departments.

Joost van der Hoeven: ‘Research is vital to gaining new insights into the beloved art in our collection. I believe this principle characterises the Van Gogh Museum, which has become the leading centre of expertise on Van Gogh and his time thanks to decades of specialist research. Bundling the museum’s research capacity in a new department brings with it exciting opportunities to explore new areas of research and new ways of sharing our insights online. I look forward to helping shape these efforts As Head of the new Research Department.’





Research into Van Gogh and his time

Van der Hoeven joined the Van Gogh Museum in June 2015. He started as an Assistant Researcher, subsequently became an Assistant Curator and has worked as a Researcher since 2019. In this role, he was the compiler and lead author of the first part of the online collection catalogue of paintings and drawings by Van Gogh’s contemporaries in the Van Gogh Museum collection.

In 2024, Van der Hoeven curated the exhibition Matthew Wong | Vincent van Gogh: Painting as a Last Resort, and in 2018 he co-curated Gauguin and Laval in Martinique. He is the editor and lead author of the scholarly volume Gauguin and Laval in Martinique Reconsidered, which will be published in 2027. In 2020, he published on the critical reception of Impressionism in the Netherlands. Van der Hoeven also contributed to the exhibition catalogues Van Gogh in America for the Detroit Institute of Arts (2022–2023) and Van Gogh and the Avant-Garde: Along the Seine for the Art Institute of Chicago and the Van Gogh Museum (2023–2024).

Van der Hoeven is conducting doctoral research at the University of Amsterdam into the significance of sincerity in 19th-century French painting and art criticism. He is examining how artists and critics use the concept strategically and artistically, and how these ideas resonate in contemporary figurative painting.