It is time to put the hokh into Vincent van Gogh. The Van Gogh Museum has made a plea for the artist’s name to be pronounced “in the real Dutch way”.
Confusion over the pronunciation was highlighted yesterday at the launch of an “immersive” exhibition of the artist’s work, with four variations heard within ten minutes. The audio guide for the exhibition in London has an English voice-over with “Van Ho”, while British people in attendance were saying “Van Goff”.
The Dutch ambassador to the UK, Simon Smits, said the surname with a strong guttural “khokh” while Adriaan Donszelmann, managing director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, used a slightly less guttural “hokh”.
Even the artist’s great-grandnephew, Willem van Gogh, segued from “Van Go”
