It might look like a giant bathtub crash landed In the center of Amsterdam, but inside the Stedelijk nothing is watered down.
The Stedelijk boasts one of the finest modern art collections in Europe, maybe the finest. It hits hard with bold artworks and a collection that refuses to play it safe.
The museum is exceptionally strong in Minimalism, de Stijl, Color Field painting, and Pop Art. And it’s considered one of the top European collections of postwar American art movements.
You’ll find artworks by such luminaries as Yayoi Kusama, Cindy Sherman, Jackson Pollock, Jeff Koons, Piet Mondrian, Kazimir Malevich, Andy Warhol, and Willem de Kooning.
The best part? The Stedelijk gets a mere fraction of the traffic you’ll find at the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum. You can ogle cutting edge contemporary art in lieu of more staid pearls and sunflowers.
In this guide to the Stedelijk, I’ll give you an easy overview of the museum layout, point you to the must see masterpieces, and share practical tips for making your visit smooth and efficient.
Quick Tips & Layout
Floor Plan
The museum has over 100,000 objects. The ones on display are laid out in a chronological sequence and grouped by social and political themes:
- Basement: Library and exhibition space
- Entrance Hall & Atrium: Sculpture Hall, restaurant, gift shop, & cloakroom
- Ground Floor: Collection until 1950 (shown in salon style, covering the wall from floor to ceiling)
- 1st Floor: Collection from 1950-1980 & Collection from 1980 to now
Only a small fraction (maybe 3–5%) of the permanent collection is ever on display at once. The museum rotates pieces regularly to highlight different artists, themes, and movements.
But the really core masterpieces are usually on display because they are a big draw for visitors.
The Stedelijk also hosts temporary exhibitions.
I saw one of the most stunning art installations of my life there, Anshelm Kiefer’s Where Have All The Floors Gone?. It was sprawled along the foyer space above the grand staircase.
Tips
- In high season, pre-book a skip the line ticket.
- There’s no specific timed entrance; enter anytime the day you designate.
- You’ll have to check your coat and bags in a (free) locker.
- Budget about 2-3 hours for the museum.
- Weekday mornings tend to be less crowded.
- You can grab a free audio guide or read the informational panels.
- “Tour highlights” are marked on placards.
- The museum also provides a free digital “Essentials Tour” that you can follow on your smartphone.
The Bathtub
Before we dive into what to see inside the museum, you might be wondering: why do locals call the Stedelijk “the bathtub”?
The museum closed in 2004 for major renovations. The old Neo-Renaissance building badly needed restoration. Everything from the electrical systems to the climate control was outdated.
The goal? Modernize the space, expand the exhibition areas, and add a restaurant and shop on the new ground floor.
To pull this off, the museum commissioned a bold new extension from Benthem Crouwel Architects. Unfortunately, the design reflected the era’s indulgent taste for flashy museum architecture.
What they came up with was a futuristic, brilliantly white bathtub. It was meant to mimic the museum’s famous “white cube” aesthetic (inside) that became so famous around the world.
But, honestly, I can’t think of a more ridiculous design. It feels completely out of place. It’s awkwardly stuck onto the rear of the beloved old brick building without any real dialogue or fusion between the two parts.
Its white bathtub meets charming Victorian pile. The clash is hard to miss and hard on the eyes.
However, the new extension is undeniably spacious and functional, and most visitors appreciate the improvements inside. But visually, it’s still seen as a strange, ungainly object that doesn’t blend at all. And no one’s shy about joking about it.
That said, I loved this museum! The galleries themselves are white, airy, and perfect for showing off modern art. And the collection is really gob smacking in quality and depth.
Guide To The Stedelijk: What To See
Here are some of the masterpieces you can’t miss and some of my personal favorites:
Barnett Newman, Cathedra
Barnett Newman pushed Abstract Expressionism to an extreme by stripping painting down to large fields of flat color interrupted by minimal vertical or horizontal bands.
Unlike Mondrian’s precise geometry or Cubist intellectualism, Newman’s work was rooted in sensory experience. He used color in a poetic way, to evoke emotion.
More than any other painter of his generation, Newman was responsible for establishing what is now called “color‐field” painting.
His Cathedra is a deep blue color field painting. It’s one of the Stedelijk’s most important post-war acquisitions.
It’s a massive piece with a thin light-blue vertical stripe, or “zip,” as the artist called this signature element, on the right.
Piet Mondrian, Composition IV
Mondrian was the vanguard of the Dutch de Stilj movement. He anticipated Minimalism before it was even an art movement.
Mondrian’s paintings are very pared down and purified. They’re a total break from representation. You’ll see clean planes of red, yellow and blue lie amid glossy, thickly painted lines of black.
Mondrian called his theory of painting Neoplasticism: a whole “new image.” It was a full break from the 19th century aesthetic he’d emerged from.
The Stedelijk has several abstract works that led to his signature grid style (including Composition No. IV and others). Some of them seem to bring to mind the tulip fields in this part of Holland.
Kazimir Malevich Artworks
Malevich was a Russian polymath who founded the movement known as Suprematism. In doing so, he gave art a visual and philosophical reset button.
Suprematism is focuses on basic geometric shapes and pure color, free from representation or narrative.
For Malevich, it all started with a square. In 1915, the artist painted a black square on a square canvas against a white background.
He called it the “zero of form,” making it an end point of figurative painting and the beginning of a new pictorial aesthetic.
If you like this style, the Stedelijk has one of the best Malevich collections outside Russia (24 artworks). Even his Cubist-futuristic canvases like The Woodcutter above.
Yayoi Kusama, Thousand Boats Show
Kusama is a brilliant and pioneering female Japanese artist, who tried to make it in the red hot art scene in 1960s New York City. Her work was dismissed, copied, and overlooked. Mostly by men she ultimately outlasted.
This groundbreaking “aggregation” was Kusama’s first room sized installation. It features a white rowboat covered in soft phallic forms.
The boat sits in a gallery space wallpapered with repeated black-and-white images of that very same boat, creating a dizzying sense of repetition.
Two white high heels are placed inside the boat—silent, strange, and a little eerie. The piece taps directly into Kusama’s deep psychological fears, especially her discomfort with the male body.
It was first exhibited at the Gertrude Stein Gallery in New York in 1963. Later, it was shown at the Stedelijk in 1965 as part of the influential “Nul” exhibition. After the exhibition, Kusama gifted the piece to the museum.
Charley Toorop, Working Class Woman
Charley Toorop was a rare force in the male dominated world of 20th century Dutch art. She was painter of fierce conviction and striking vision.
Her 1943 work Working Class Woman is a riveting highlight of the Stedelijk. It captures both resilience and defiance in the face of wartime devastation. It will be difficult to pull your eyes away.
The central figure, depicted with Toorop’s signature intensity, is set against the bombed ruins of Rotterdam. It’s a powerful nod to the city’s destruction during the German air raid of 1940.
Through this stark backdrop and the stoic presence of the woman, Toorop elevates ordinary strength to heroic scale. She makes the painting as politically charged as it is visually arresting.
Anselm Kiefer, Resurrexit
Anselm Kiefer is a German painter and sculptor known for his monumental, textured works that grapple with history, myth, and memory. They often confront the legacy of World War II and the Holocaust.
The Sanders family began collecting Anselm Kiefer in the late 1970s. They were the first private collectors of his work in the Netherlands.
Resurrexit is classic Kiefer—bleak, symbolic, and layered with meaning.
A snake slithers down a deserted forest path, heading toward a vanishing point. The blood red foliage suggests danger. But the snake’s power to shed its skin hints at renewal.
Above the horizon, a staircase leads to a closed door. Perhaps an exit, perhaps not.
Jan Sluijters, Bal Taborin, 1907
Sluijters’ Bal Tabarin is a dazzling celebration of modern life. It captures the electric energy of Parisian nightlife at the dawn of the 20th century. It’s a gorgeous painting!
Painted after his transformative stay in Paris, Sluijters was inspired by the lively Montmartre district, particularly the famed Bal Tabarin nightclub. This venue was known for its lively can-can performances and avant-garde ambiance.
In this large scale painting, you’re immersed in a whirlwind of color and movement. The canvas is awash with luminous yellows, deep blues, and fiery reds, capturing the pulsating rhythms of dance and the brilliance of electric chandeliers.
The artist’s technique is characterized by bold brushstrokes and a vibrant palette. It aligns with the principles of Luminism, which emphasizes the play of light and color to evoke emotion.
Andy Warhol, Bellevue II
Bellevue II depicts the bleak aftermath of a suicide at New York’s Bellevue Hospital. It’s a subject drawn from a newspaper photo that obsessed Andy Warhol during the early 1960s.
Warhol repeated the image 14 times in a stark four column grid. He used the silkscreen technique to distance himself emotionally and emphasize mass media’s role in shaping our view of tragedy.
Death was a recurring preoccupation in his work at the time. And here it becomes both unsettling and strangely detached.
The viewer is invited into a disturbing space between observation and intrusion.
Roy Lichtenstein, As I Opened Fire
Roy Lichtenstein wasn’t just inspired by pop culture. Like Warhol, he turned it into high art.
A leading voice in the 1960s Pop Art movement, Lichtenstein often pulled scenes straight from comic books, like this triptych based on images from the comic book All-American Men of War.
He blew up the panels, amped up the primary colors, and kept the bold black outlines and signature dots you’d find in cheap printing.
Out of context, Lichtenstein’s images feel both familiar and surreal. They’re a mash-up of heroism, irony, and mass media flair.
Marc Chagall Paintings
The Stedelijk has 9 notable paintings by Marc Chagall. In his fantasy worlds, lovers float through the sky, animals play the violin, and color pulses with emotion.
The most famous Steleijk work is The Fiddler. It’s a colorful painting of a violinist playing atop rooftops. It’s a theme that later influenced the musical Fiddler on the Roof.
The painting is part of a series of pictures in which Chagall brought to life legendary characters from his village in Russia.
Fiddlers were a central part of festivities in the Jewish community. The fiddler showed up at important moments: births, weddings, and funerals.
Here, the fiddler is an enormous looming figure against a snowy nighttime landscape. A blossoming fairytale tree with birds serves as a poetic emblem. At the top floats a child, with a halo in a light blue sky.
Kathe Burkhardt, Scumbag
This piece is a striking example from Burkhart’s ongoing Liz Taylor Series, initiated in 1982. In it, she recontextualizes images of Elizabeth Taylor to critique gender roles, power dynamics, celebrity culture, and societal norms.
This painting is based on a still from the 1967 film Reflections in a Golden Eye, starring Taylor.
Burkhart overlays the Graphic image with the word “Smeerlap” (Dutch for “scumbag”), turning it into a feminist critique of male aggression and voyeurism.
The intent is to reposition Taylor as a rebellious figure countering Hollywood’s typical blonde, bubbly archetype.
Edward Keinholz, The Beanery
Created in 1965, The Beanery is an immersive, walk-in installation recreating the inside of a grungy Los Angeles bar(a real place Kienholz hung out at in Santa Monica).
The figures inside are mannequins with clocks for faces. They’re all set at 10:10 am, symbolizing how time rules people’s lives even in their moments of supposed escape.
The lighting is dim, the smell is musty. The whole experience feels claustrophobic, seedy, and intensely real. It’s almost like you’re stepping into a frozen moment of everyday American life.
It’s an important piece because it blurs sculpture, installation, and social commentary, and it was extremely radical for its time.
Gerrit Rietveld, Red and Blue Chair
Rietveld’s Red and Blue Chair isn’t just a piece of furniture. It’s one of the most influential designs of the twentieth century! Rietveld completely reimagined what a chair could be, breaking down traditional ideas of form and space.
Instead of solid, bulky shapes, he reduced the chair to a few clean planes that define space without closing it off.
It blurs the lines between painting, sculpture, and architecture. The chair that feels like it’s moving even when it’s standing still.
The bold use of primary colors strips away any sense of natural material, turning the chair into a pure, abstract object.
This radical approach, known as Neoplasticism, was at the heart of the De Stijl movement that reshaped art and design in early 20th century Holland.
Sculpture Hall
The ground floor of the museum contains the Don Quixote Sculpture Hall. This part of the museum is free to visit, so wander in and take a look around.
You’ll find works by Damien Hirst, Jean Arp, Alexander Calder, Nikki de Saint Phalle, and Henry Moore, among others.
You won’t be able to miss Hirst’s The Incredible Journey. It’s part of his series of preserved animals in formaldehyde.
The zebra evokes wildness and spectacle. But in a sanitized, clinical tank, it becomes strangely still and decorative. That tension is exactly what Hirst plays with.
Practical Tips For Visiting The Stedelijk
Address: Museumplein 10
Opening Hours:
- Saturday to Thursday: 10:00 am to 7:00 pm
- Friday: 10:00 am to 9:00 pm
- Last Entry: 45 minutes before closing time
Tickets:
- Adults: € 22.50. Click here to pre-book a ticket.
- Students (with valid ID): € 10.00
- Children and teens under 19: free
- Admission free with the Amsterdam City Card
I hope you’ve enjoyed my guide to the Stedelijk. Pin it for later.
