Van Gogh's Correspondence and Paintings on Show

The Real Van Gogh – The Artist and His Letters on Display

Jan 18, 2010
Frances Spiegel

Vincent van Gogh, Portrait as an Artist, 1888 - Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Selected paintings, drawings and correspondence reveal Vincent van Gogh's thoughts about art, his passions, his successes and his self-perceived failings.

Between 1880 and 1890 Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) created over 2,000 artworks, including 900 paintings and more than 1,000 drawings and sketches. Van Gogh also wrote several hundred letters.

The Royal Academy of Arts' newest exhibition, The Real Van Gogh – The Artist and His Letters, features more than 35 original letters together with approximately 65 paintings and 30 drawings to which they relate.

Vincent van Gogh – Teacher, Preacher, and Artist

Vincent Willem van Gogh suffered frequent bouts of mental instability and died, aged 37, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. One hundred and twenty years after his death he is acknowledged as one of the 19th century’s finest painters who helped lay the foundations of modern art.

Van Gogh turned to painting, in 1880, after a number of failed careers. At the age of 16 he worked as an assistant with a firm of art dealers, working in their branches in The Hague, Paris and London. During this time he met an English school mistress but this unrequited affair only served to intensify his religious zeal and to further destroy his self-confidence.

After a short career as a school master he trained, unsuccessfully, to become a Methodist preacher. In 1878 he became an evangelist preacher for a religious society at Le Borinage, a Belgian mining town. A religious zealot, he took to the streets, giving away all his possessions and sleeping on the floor of a derelict hut.

Some of van Gogh's best-known pieces, including Van Gogh’s Chair (1888), and its companion piece, Paul Gauguin’s Chair (1888), were produced in the two years before his death in 1890. Other paintings from this period include Self-Portrait as an Artist (1888), The Yellow House (1888), Still-life: Drawing Board with Onions (1889) and Cypresses (1889). These paintings are discussed further in The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters

Highlights of The Real Van Gogh – The Artist and His Letters

Van Gogh's Chair

The exhibition includes many of the artist's best-known paintings such as Van Gogh's Chair (1888). In this rustic painting van Gogh places his pipe and pouch of tobacco on the rush seat of a simple wooden chair. A box of onions can be seen to one side. The main colour of this painting is the mellow shade of yellow that van Gogh adopted as his signature colour.

Paul Gauguin's Chair

Paul Gauguin's Chair (1888) is often regarded as a companion piece to Van Gogh's Chair. The setting is somewhat more elegant. Van Gogh represents his friendship with Gauguin by placing an armchair on a carpet. On the upholstered seat of the chair are two novels and a burning candle. Van Gogh's association with Paul Gauguin was punctuated by violent quarrels, but despite this, in November 1888, Vincent wrote to his brother Theo: “it does me a tremendous amount of good to have sucah intelligent company.” The full letter can be read at Van Gogh Letters.

Self-Portrait as an Artist

Vincent van Gogh produced a number of self-portraits, but this is one of the few where van Gogh shows himself as an artist, surrounded by brushes, a palette, canvas and easel. Van Gogh signed the painting prominently, perhaps to indicate that he was pleased with the finished article.

Pollard Willow

The watercolour, Pollard Willow (1882), is displayed together with van Gogh's letter to his brother, Theo. The letter discusses various aspects of van Gogh’s life ranging from the commercial value of his work to the ‘chemistry of colours’ and how to analyse them. The artist describes how sketches grow through the observation and study of anatomy and perspective. Van Gogh tells his brother about the pleasure of working, describing in detail Pollard Willow, calling it “a sombre landscape – that dead tree beside a stagnant pond”.

The Real van Gogh – Exhibition Catalogue

The display is supported by the exhibition catalogue which explores van Gogh's paintings and correspondence revealing intimate details about the artist. The publication features essays and commentaries by leading van Gogh historians.

Related Publication

The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition

The exhibition is timed to coincide with the release of a major publication by Thames & Hudson entitled, The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition. The six-volume work features more than 4,000 illustrations and presents 15 years of research together with transcriptions and reproductions of 800 letters.

The ticketed exhibition – The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and his Letters – will be on view from 23rd January to 18th April 2010. Further information can be obtained from the Royal Academy of Arts.