Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers on the move

Vincent's Sunflowers on the move

Massive security operation swings into action as van Gogh's masterpieces leave their museum in Amsterdam

A massive security operation went into effect at on Sunday night as the Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam closed its doors and moved some of the world's most famous paintings to the Hermitage Museum across town. Alarm tags were removed from van Gogh's greatest masterpieces, including "Sunflowers," ''Irises" and "Bedroom" as soon as the museum closed and the paintings quickly removed from the museum's walls.

Curator Leo Jansen described the security measures that were undertaken to safeguard the precious cargo. Apparently after being loaded onto felt-covered trolleys, the paintings were taken to a workshop and wrapped in protective insulation. They were then packed into hard carrying cases called "turtles" resistant to physical shock and temperature changes. The cases were then assigned code numbers rather than the paintings' names (because that would be er, obvious). They were then were then driven across town accompanied by armed police escort.

The route each shipment followed was kept secret until the last moment. Even the date of the move was known only to a select few museum officials and staff. The operation apparently continued like clockwork all through Sunday night and into the early hours of Monday morning. The paintings will be back on show at the Hermitage this Saturday where they'll remain until April next year when the Van Gogh Museum is due to reopen on April 25, 2013. The Vincent van Gogh Museum is Amsterdam's most visited tourist attraction. Van Gogh, of course is one of many legendary artists featured in both the new edition of The Art Book and The Art Museum both in the store now.

Van GoghWilhelm Uhde

Phaidon's classic illustrated monograph on Van Gogh, updated with an elegantly crafted design for today's burgeoning art aficionados.

Reviving a much beloved group of artist monographs from the Phaidon archive, the new Phaidon Classics bring to life the fine craftsmanship and design of Phaidon books of the 1930s, 40s and 50s. Updated with a contemporary "classic" design, full color images and new introductions by leading specialists on the work of each artist, these elegantly crafted volumes revive the fine bookmaking of the first half of the twentieth century, making Phaidon Classics instant collectors' items.

A splendid presentation of the work of Van Gogh (1853-1890), one of the best-selling artists in the world, much loved for the rough beauty, emotional honesty and bold color of his paintings. The book features Van Gogh's most famous and familiar works - Sunflowers, Starry Night, Irises and his self-portraits - are seen anew, in stunning full color-illustrations.

Specifications:

Format: Hardback
Size: 354 × 260 mm (14 × 10 1/4 in)
Pages: 180 pp
Illustrations: 125 illustrations
ISBN: 9780714868905

Wilhelm Uhde (1874-1947) was an art critic and dealer who witnessed at first hand Van Gogh's posthumous rise to fame in the early twentieth century. Louis van Tilborgh is Senior Researcher at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

"It wasn't until we saw these books in person that we were able to appreciate how sumptuous, smartly designed, and just plain sexy they are. Best of all are the illustrations. Each volume has 125 crisp and meticulous reproductions – the Van Gogh colors are ripe to the point of bursting." —Elle Decor

"We forget, in our image-laden era, just how recent a phenomenon art books are, with their true-colour reproductions of both old and contemporary works of art. We also forget just how essential they are, not just for the pleasure of the general public, but as a source of inspiration for artists and to encourage new generations of collectors and art historians. One key factor in this progress was the founding of Phaidon Press in 1923... Last year Phaidon embarked on a major project to produce a new series of 'Phaidon Classics'... A major decision has been to update the selection of images and the catalogue notes, but to retain the original essays, adding instead a preface by a contemporary scholar. What you get, therefore, besides a beautiful book, is a fascinating dialogue between quite different styles of address to the art-loving audience. This is an astute move." —Apollo-magazine.com