record year for Verwey Museum Haarlem

Verwey Museum Haarlem ended 2025 with 29.150 visitors, the highest number since the museum opened in 1990. This record year is due to the successful programming around 125 years of Kees Verwey and the associated public activities that attracted a lot of interest. The city museum of Haarlem remains committed to providing an attractive and varied range of history and art for a wide audience.

Crowd puller: 125 years of Kees Verwey

With an average of more than 100 visitors per day for the first time, the exhibition series 125 years of Kees Verwey – Tricks of a master the highlight of the year. Visitors responded enthusiastically: “A great artist, fittingly honored.” The first museum exhibition of the idiosyncratic work of needlework artist Jeanne Tilbusscher, also the wife of Kees Verwey, also received many enthusiastic responses: “Jeanne's embroideries deserve much more attention!”

We said goodbye to the event with a spectacular closing ceremony on Sunday, May 11th. Let Love Reign – Dolly Bellefleur: 35 Years on the Barricades. This colorful exhibition dedicated to the alter ego of rainbow activist Ruud Douma attracted large audiences and reached new target groups. The permanent presentation All Haarlemmers, over 1000 years of city history, remained as popular as ever.

Museum for everyone

Verwey Museum Haarlem The museum remains strongly committed to accessibility and inclusion, including Monday openings, free admission on the first Sunday of the month, and special activities such as silent openings and workshops. With exhibitions, activities, and educational programs, the museum focuses on various—and sometimes new—target groups. Director Anne van Lienden: “Extra attention is paid to schools. We want everyone Haarlems child at least once during his or her school days the regular presentation All Haarlemmers visits, about a thousand years of city history.”

Outlook 2026: history and current events

Now showing: Rest and Remember, the first museum solo exhibition of Jacobien de Rooij (until 25 May 2026) and Black Snow, a multimedia exhibition by photographer Harm van de Poel, about life in and around Tata Steel. This exhibition will be enhanced with an in-depth public program, including a dialogue table with those involved. Expected from June 12: Linnaeus Revised, in which contemporary artists offer new perspectives on the strict classification system developed by the 18th-century botanist Carl Linnaeus at the De Hartekamp country estate in Heemstede.