Jan Hulsker (2 October 1907,

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

– 9 November 2002,

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

) was a Dutch art historian especially noted for his work on

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks ...

. He studied Dutch literature in Leiden and was promoted with a thesis on the author

Aart van der Leeuw Aart van der Leeuw (; 23 June 1876 – 17 April 1931) was a Dutch writer of prose fiction and poetry. His reputation rests mostly on two novels, ''Ik en mijn speelman'' (1927) and ''De kleine Rudolf'' (1930). Biography Aart van der Leeuw was born ...

. In 1953, he was appointed to the Ministerie van Cultuur, Recreatie en Maatschappelijk werk, in charge of the art department. In 1959, he became general director in charge of culture at large (directeur-generaal voor culturele zaken). The establishment of the

Vincent van Gogh Foundation Vincent (Latin: ''Vincentius'') is a masculine given name originating from the Roman name ''Vincentius'', which itself comes from the Latin verb ''vincere'', meaning "to conquer." People with the given name Artists *Vincent Apap (1909–2003) ...

and the

Van Gogh Museum The Van Gogh Museum () is a Dutch art museum dedicated to the works of Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries in the Museum Square in Amsterdam South, close to the Stedelijk Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Concertgebouw. The museum opened o ...

in Amsterdam were among his major tasks. From the 1950s, Hulsker contributed to Van Gogh research, concentrating on the dating of Van Gogh's correspondence. In 1973, Hulsker's most important study was published, ''Van Gogh door Van Gogh'', which has not been translated from the Dutch. He is the author of an acknowledged ''

catalogue raisonné A (or critical catalogue) is an annotated listing of the works of an artist or group of artists and can contain all works or a selection of works categorised by different parameters such as medium or period. A ''catalogue raisonné'' is normal ...

'' of Van Gogh's work, published in 1977, revised in 1984 and again in 1996. His catalogue numbers are preceded by a "JH": thus JH1731 refers to the 1889 oil painting ''

The Starry Night ''The Starry Night'', often called simply ''Starry Night'', is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. Painted in June 1889, it depicts the view from the east-facing window of his asylum room at Sain ...

'' (previously catalogued by

Jacob Baart de la Faille Jacob Baart de la Faille (1 June 1886 – 7 August 1959) compiled the first ''catalogue raisonné'' of the work of Vincent van Gogh, published in 1928. The catalogue was revised and republished by an editorial committee in 1970, and this version ...

as F612). Hulsker warned that numerous forgeries were passing as Van Goghs. In the 1980s, Hulsker left the Netherlands and settled in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where he died in 2002.

Books

* Hulsker, Jan. ''Vincent and Theo van Gogh; A dual biography''. Ann Arbor: Fuller Publications, 1990. * Hulsker, Jan. ''The Complete Van Gogh''. Oxford: Phaidon, 1980. .

References

Sources

Short biography
1907 births 2002 deaths Dutch art historians Writers from The Hague Vincent van Gogh scholars 20th-century Dutch painters Dutch male painters {{Europe-art-historian-stub