Come December, van Gogh, Mondrian and other Dutch masters will be in India

Over 60 works from the Drents Museum in the Netherlands will be on display at NGMA, Delhi

It isn’t every day that Vincent van Gogh comes to India. But some four weeks from now, he will travel to Delhi through one of his early paintings. Along with his work will travel 60-odd paintings of other Dutch masters, among them Piet Mondrian, Jan Sluijters, Suze Robertson, Hendrik Willem Mesdag and George Breitner.

 

The exhibition, titled “Van Gogh and Dutch Masters: Visions of Clouds and Trees”, will be on view at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi, from December 4, 2026, to April 4, 2027. The works, from the permanent collection of the Drents Museum in Assen, the Netherlands, will trace the evolution of Dutch landscape painting from the 19th to the early 20th century, exploring how artists from the region interpreted nature through expansive skies, shifting cloud formations, woodlands and trees.

 

 

The exhibition also marks a milestone in cultural cooperation between India and the Netherlands. It follows an Amrita Sher-Gil exhibition at the Drents Museum (May to September) and is part of the India Biennale 2026.

 

The lone van Gogh painting, The Peat Barge (1883), which will be put up at NGMA, tells the story of the artist’s formative years. He painted it during his brief stay at Drenthe, a province in the north of the Netherlands, which is home to the Drents Museum. 

The Peat Barge, Vincent van Gogh, Drenthe (1883) | Photo: Courtesy Drents Museum

 

Suzanne Rus, conservator and curator at the Drents Museum, says the growing interest in landscape painting during the 18th and 19th centuries coincided with rapid industrialisation in the Netherlands. It prompted artists to often seek refuge in the countryside. Drenthe, with its vast peat fields and uninterrupted landscapes, became one such haven.

 

Encouraged by fellow artists, van Gogh, too, visited the province but chose a part that other painters had largely overlooked. While many artists travelled to Drenthe during summer, he arrived in autumn, encountering a landscape that was darker and more subdued, says Rus. It offered him a different perspective on the countryside and an opportunity to experiment. He also found inspiration in the lives of the people who inhabited Drenthe. 

 

Though he stayed there for barely three months, the experience helped shape his understanding of himself as a painter. He was 29/30 years old then. He began experimenting with light and colour, becoming increasingly sensitive to it. “His letters to his brother Theo, written during that period, offer insights into the artistic direction he was beginning to discover,” says Rus, drawing attention to the interplay of dark tones with striking touches of red and white in the painting. 

Piet Mondrian, Moored Barge with Horses, 1898-1900, oil on canvas | Photos: Courtesy Drents Museum

 

Among the other prominent works that will travel to India will be Julius Jacobus van de Sande Bakhuyzen’s Cows at the Water’s Edge. The painting carries a personal history. Bakhuyzen, who was from The Hague, regularly travelled to Drenthe during the summer months to visit his sister who was a floral painter. After her death, he never returned to the village where this work was created.

 

Another significant inclusion will be Piet Mondrian’s Moored Barge With Horses (1898-1900). Today, Mondrian is best known for his geometric abstractions, such as straight lines, grids and primary colours. This early work, however, belongs to a period when he was still painting recognisable landscapes.

 

Among the rare women artists to feature at the exhibition will be Suze Robertson. Although she never visited Drenthe, she painted in other parts of the Netherlands. Her work broadens the scope of the exhibition, going beyond one province or artistic movement.

 

Through these artists, and others, the exhibition traces a transition from Romanticism to Impressionism, Expressionism and early Modernism.

 

The Drents Museum, meanwhile, has quite a history of its own. Opened in 1854, its collections date back to the 18th century, spanning archaeology, history and visual art. This will be its first exhibition in India.

 

It will extend beyond the display of paintings to include an immersive projection of the works, offering a sense of how the artists observed and experienced the Drenthe landscape.