During the coming five years, Franka Blok will be trained to become a Van Gogh specialist, with a particular focus on works on paper. Blok will be supervised by Senior Researcher Teio Meedendorp.
Franka Blok (photo: Elvin Boer)
Franka Blok:
‘I am delighted to have the opportunity in the years ahead to further explore the (drawn) oeuvre and life of one of the world’s most renowned artists, under the supervision of my expert colleagues at the Van Gogh Museum’.
Works on Paper
For the past three years, Blok was Assistant Curator at the Van Gogh Museum. In this role, she assisted in the acquisition of new works for the collection, contributed to the collection catalogue Contemporaries of Van Gogh 1: Works Collected by Theo and Vincent, and curated two print presentations: The Gasworks: Van Eeden and Van Gogh (2022) and Landscapes of Sentiment (2024). Blok’s interest in both Van Gogh and works on paper burgeoned in 2014 during her Curating the Art Museum Master’s at The Courtauld Institute of Art in London.
This interest continued to develop over the years. Initially during Blok’s time as Junior Curator at the Cobra Museum, and subsequently at the Van Gogh Museum – particularly in 2023, when she was acting Curator of Prints and Drawings for a period of six months.
The Van Gogh Museum is deeply grateful to Howard and Roberta Ahmanson for their generous support during a period of five years, which enables us to train a Junior Researcher into a Van Gogh Expert.