Review: Visiting Meet Vincent van Gogh in London with kids

On Saturday night the bedtime story in our house was from Vincent’s Starry Night and Other Stories: A children’s history of art by Michael Bird (Laurence King, £19.95). We had turned to the section on Vincent van Gogh in preparation for visiting Meet Vincent van Gogh, which we had been invited to review.

After reading the short story about van Gogh’s life, we were ready to head to London’s Southbank the next day for a unique lesson in art history. Unlike a traditional art gallery, the Meet Vincent van Gogh experience is not about original works, and instead it’s a multi-sensory exhibition that teaches audiences about the influential post-impressionist’s life, inspiration and painting style.

The experience, created by the Van Gogh Museum, is housed in a temporary structure behind the National Theatre, and audioguides with tours for both children and adults are included in the ticket price. The audio commentary is automatically triggered as visitors move through the space, which features large, projections, and showcases reproductions of some of van Gogh’s renowned masterpieces.

There are several drawing tables, with one introducing visitors to how van Gogh looked through a frame to get the perspective right, and another focusing on self-portraits and the use of colours. Some of the other highlights included a hay wagon and a massive pretend haystack–which we climbed on and hay is now imprinted in all our minds as a recurring motif from van Gogh’s paintings from the South of France.

We also enjoyed a large, expanded version of a small section from a painting, which we could touch to get an understanding of the bold brushstrokes that characterised van Gogh’s style.

And we had a giggle taking a selfie in the exhibition’s life-sized recreation of van Gogh’s bedroom.

As part of this engaging and interactive exhibition, children can also pick up a scavenger hunt sheet, and, for example, try to spot the difference between the recreation of the bedroom and the way the room was once painted by van Gogh.