This new book is an original interpretation of the final years of Van Gogh’s career, exploring the people and places in his late painting. The years before Van Gogh died in 1890 were pivotal to the painter’s brief artistic career.
He worked in the South of France and intended to create new work to advance his career. Van Gogh set about developing compositions informed by the natural world surrounding him, the poets and lovers he encountered in literature, and the individual models he was depicting. The process of his imaginative transformations has never been explored, which will provide the opportunity to present significant new insights into the much-loved painter’s life.
The catalogue features an incredible range of ambitious canvases and essential works on paper. It presents new research on themes, including the artist’s innovative approach to exhibiting his work and the varied literary sources that inspired his characters and compositions. These topics, rarely written about about this well-known artist, offer a unique opportunity to expand scholarly and public interpretations of Van Gogh’s remarkable oeuvre.
Vincent van Gogh was born in 1853 and died in 1890. He was a seminal Dutch Post-Impressionist painter in 20th-century art. Born in Groot-Zundert, Netherlands, Van Gogh first undertook a career as an art dealer and a missionary before taking up painting in his late twenties. His early works, like The Potato Eaters, concentrated on the hardships of rural existence with dark earth tones, culminating in an extraordinary sensitivity for the working class.
In 1886, Van Gogh moved to Paris and was confronted face to face with flourishing Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism. His style became different, having been charmed by the brilliant colours and energetic work of the brush. Later works: the series Sunflowers and The Café Terrace at Night. Later, when he was in Arles in the South of France, his mental health started to get worse, but some of the most famous works appeared during this period: Starry Night and The Bedroom.
Despite his tremendous productivity, Van Gogh had severe mental health problems and was not economically stable during his lifetime. In 1890, he died of self-inflicted injuries caused by a gunshot. During his lifetime, Van Gogh was largely unknown.
Published by National Gallery Global/Distributed by Yale University Press
The National Gallery, London (14 September 2024–19 January 2025)
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