Situated approximately halfway between Amsterdam’s iconic Museum Square and popular attractions like NEMO Science Museum and the National Maritime Museum, Hermitage Amsterdam is another one of the city’s beloved cultural institutions. Located in a historic building encompassing one of central Amsterdam’s largest courtyards, Hermitage Amsterdam is best known for its temporary exhibitions that feature a variety of spectacular artworks on loan from high-profile museums across the world. The focus here is often on paintings from the Dutch Golden Age, but Hermitage Amsterdam is also dedicated to highlighting contemporary examples of outsider art.
Money Saving Tip! Hermitage Amsterdam is included on the I Amsterdam City Pass. If you are sightseeing in Amsterdam, then you can save a lot of money with the pass.
History of Hermitage Amsterdam
The building where Hermitage Amsterdam is housed today has a long and intriguing history. Located on the eastern bank of the River Amstel (and since 1953 known as the Amstelhof), this historic structure was built in 1683. Its construction was made possible through the generosity of a wealthy local merchant named Barent Helleman, whose will stipulated that his estate go to the creation of a facility designed to house and care for elderly women. When the building was first completed, its massive 330-foot-long exterior was the largest in the entire city of Amsterdam. Men were permitted to reside here, too, in 1817, and the site would remain a home for the elderly and infirm until 2007.
In 2009, after two years of extensive renovations and an elaborate top-to-bottom redesign, Amstelhof reopened as Hermitage Amsterdam, a privately financed art museum with a collaborative relationship with the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. These museum-to-museum ties were severed in March of 2022, when Hermitage Amsterdam ended its collaboration with the State Hermitage Museum on account of the war in Ukraine.
Hermitage Amsterdam Highlights
Hermitage Amsterdam doesn’t possess its own permanent collection; instead, it specializes in organizing temporary exhibitions that bring together under one roof fabulous artworks from acclaimed museums all over the world. This means every time you visit Hermitage Amsterdam you’re going to experience something new and different. The museum typically stages two big shows each year, with recent exhibitions of note including Dutch Heritage Amsterdam, an exhibition of famous Dutch paintings on loan to Hermitage Amsterdam from the Rijksmuseum; and Rembrandt and His Contemporaries, which presented 35 paintings drawn from the Leiden Collection.
Hermitage Amsterdam is also where you’ll find the Amsterdam branch of the unique art institution known as the Museum of the Mind. The Museum of the Mind highlights creative works by so-called “outsider artists”—those individuals without formal artistic training or significant art world connections who nonetheless devise and create memorable works of art. Outsider Art exhibits staged at Hermitage Amsterdam’s Museum of the Mind change out multiple times a year, but more often than not showcase the work of multiple contemporary artists grouped together thematically. Recent themed presentations have explored topics as diverse as love, sustainability, and obsession, just to name a few.
More to See and Do at Hermitage Amsterdam
Here are several more things worth knowing about as you plan your Hermitage Amsterdam outing.
•Hermitage Amsterdam’s café is a pleasant dining option for museum visitors. Its lunch-centric menu features seasonal ingredients, tasty desserts, coffee, wine, and more. Reservations are accepted.
•The Hermitage Amsterdam Museum Shop regularly stocks an assortment of books, jewelry, art objects, home décor items, and music. The Museum Shop also curates a new selection of merchandise relevant to each and every temporary exhibition hosted here.
•If you have a bit of extra time left over in your schedule when visiting the museum, be sure and check out the attraction’s Courtyard Garden. This beautiful green space is considered the largest of its kind anywhere in the heart of Amsterdam, and it’s a lovely spot to get some fresh air, do some art-book sketching, or chat with a friend about the exhibit you’ve just seen. When the weather cooperates, a small kiosk opens for business in the Courtyard Garden, and it offers guests the same menu as the museum’s café.
•Visitors looking to get even more out of their time at Hermitage Amsterdam will want to check out the attraction’s official website ahead of their trip to learn what sort of special events will be taking place here when they’re in town. Hermitage Amsterdam routinely hosts movie screenings, jazz concerts, educational lectures, and guided tours, just to name a few.
•Every admission to Hermitage Amsterdam entitles visitors to a complimentary audio tour. Guests may pick up their audio tour at the entrance to each particular exhibit.
Why Hermitage Amsterdam Should Be on Your Must-See List
If you’re looking to add one more art museum to your Amsterdam itinerary, Hermitage Amsterdam makes for a great choice. Its prominent location near the Jewish Historical Museum, Portuguese Synagogue, Hortus Botanicus, and the Rembrandt House Museum means it’s an easy destination to reach no matter your means of transportation, while the museum’s eclectic nature—its multiple temporary exhibitions often showcase the best of seventeenth-century Dutch art and the twenty-first-century avant garde at the same time—ensures there’s always a little of something for everybody on display here.