Header image: the facade of the Van Gogh Village Museum in Nuenen. Photo: DorineSaes, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, in Zundert, in Dutch Brabant. Thirty years later, in December 1883, he moved in with his parents at the parsonage in Nuenen, where his father was the pastor. There he painted weavers, peasants and landscapes, and crowned the period with The Potato Eaters; in November 1885 he left for Antwerp.
Nuenen still has many of the settings from those two years, and Zundert remembers his birth. Here are the places, with the works he painted at each one.
Van Gogh’s places in Nuenen and Zundert, one by one
Nuenen: the Van Gogh Village Museum (Vincentre)
A museum devoted to the Nuenen period that explains how he arrived at The Potato Eaters through his many studies of hands, heads and peasants, with the interactive Lightlab and temporary exhibitions. It also runs walks through the village, which has as many as 24 places connected with Van Gogh.
Address: Berg 29, 5671 CA Nuenen.
Nuenen: the parsonage and its garden
The Van Gogh family lived in this house from 1882 to the end of 1885, and Vincent from December 1883, according to the Van Gogh Brabant heritage portal. He painted the house and its garden, including in spring, under snow and by moonlight.
Address: Berg 26, 5671 CC Nuenen.
The Vicarage at Nuenen
The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring
The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in the Snow
The Parsonage at Nuenen by MoonlightNuenen: the old tower (Oude Toren) and its cemetery
The old tower, all that was left of the village’s old church next to its cemetery, was one of his favorite subjects: he devoted no fewer than 35 drawings and paintings to it.
The tower no longer exists: demolition began in 1885, while Van Gogh was living in Nuenen, and today a few stones mark its foundations. The cemetery survives, and his father, Theodorus van Gogh, buried on March 30, 1885, still lies there.
Address: Tomakker 2, 5673 LE Nuenen.
The Old Tower at Nuenen (Kröller-Müller Museum)
The Old Cemetery Tower at Nuenen in the Snow
The Old Tower in the Fields
The Old Tower at Nuenen (Foundation E. G. Bührle Collection)Nuenen: the Van Gogh church
The small Reformed church where his father preached. According to Dutch Wikipedia, it now hosts ceremonies and cultural events.
Address: Papenvoort 2, 5671 CR Nuenen.
Nuenen: the Opwetten water mill
A water mill on the Kleine Dommel river that Van Gogh painted in November 1884.
Address: Opwettenseweg 203, 5674 AC Nuenen.
Nuenen: the site of The Potato Eaters house
In Van Gogh’s day this lot was home to the farmhouse of the De Groot family, the peasant family he painted in The Potato Eaters in April and May 1885, according to the Van Gogh Brabant heritage portal. That house was torn down in the late 1920s; the present house was built by a son of Gordina de Groot, partly on the same lot and with some of the old house’s stones.
Address: Gerwenseweg 4, 5674 SG Nuenen.
Nuenen: the Hildo Krop monument
A monument to Van Gogh by the sculptor Hildo Krop, put up on the 40th anniversary of the painter’s death.
Address: next to Berg 44, 5671 CA Nuenen.
Zundert: the Vincent van GoghHuis
An art center built on the site of his birthplace, which was torn down in 1903 to make way for a new parsonage. It opened in August 2008 and tells the story of the painter’s childhood. Wikipedia places the house where he was born at number 29 on the Markt square; the current center’s address is Markt 26-27.
Address: Markt 26-27, 4881 CN Zundert.
Zundert: the Protestant church and his brother’s grave
In the churchyard of the church where his father preached is the grave of Vincent’s stillborn brother, who was also named Vincent.
Address: Van Goghplein 1, 4881 DA Zundert.
Zundert: Zadkine’s monument to Vincent and Theo
A bronze sculpture by Ossip Zadkine showing Vincent with his brother Theo, unveiled by Queen Juliana in 1964.
Museums and visits
Van Gogh Village Museum (Vincentre), Nuenen. An exhibition on the Nuenen period and the studies leading up to The Potato Eaters, with the interactive Lightlab and guided walks. Its website announces the temporary exhibition “From oil lamp to OLED: Light on the Potato Eaters”. Official website: vangoghvillagenuenen.nl.
Het Noordbrabants Museum, ‘s-Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch). It shows twelve original works by Van Gogh from his Brabant years, including Water Mill at Kollen near Nuenen and The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen. Official website: hetnoordbrabantsmuseum.nl. More on our page Van Gogh at the Noordbrabants Museum (in Spanish).
Vincent van GoghHuis, Zundert. An art center on the site of his birthplace (Markt 26-27), with an exhibition on his childhood in Zundert. Official website: vangoghhuis.com.
How to get there and where to stay
Nuenen has no train station: you get there by bus from Eindhoven Centraal station. Zundert has no train either and is reached by bus, for example from Roosendaal. The most practical option is to stay in Eindhoven or in Nuenen itself.
More about Van Gogh in Nuenen and Zundert
The whole period, with its main works, is covered in Nuenen (1883–1885). To find out which museums around the world hold his paintings today, see where to see Van Gogh’s paintings.
Sources: official websites vangoghvillagenuenen.nl, vangoghsites.com, vangoghhuis.com and hetnoordbrabantsmuseum.nl; English Wikipedia articles “Vincent van Gogh” and “Zundert”; Dutch Wikipedia articles “Oude kerk (Nuenen)” and “Van Goghkerkje (Nuenen)”; each work’s page on museovangogh.org; photo from Wikimedia Commons.