Jan Hulsker (2 October 1907,

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

– 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 ...

) 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 posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

. He studied Dutch literature in Leiden and was promoted with a thesis on the author Aart van der Leeuw. 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 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 opene ...

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 ''catalogue raisonné'' (or critical catalogue) is a comprehensive, annotated listing of all the known artworks by an artist either in a particular medium or all media. The works are described in such a way that they may be reliably identified ...

'' of Van Gogh's work, published in 1978, revised in 1989 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'' ( nl, De sterrennacht) 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 Saint-Rémy-de-Prove ...

'' (previously catalogued by

Jacob Baart de la Faille Jacob Baart de la Faille (1 June 1886, Leeuwarden – 7 August 1959, Heemstede) 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 ...

as F612). 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