GALLERY DESIGN：10Rooms

Road in Etten

Road in Etten

1881

In 1881 van Gogh briefly resided in Etten, where he produced a number of drawings of local peasants and laborers performing routine, humble tasks. This masterful work, in which a man with a broom is seen sweeping a street lined with pollard willows, is a characteristic example.

Orphan Man, Standing

Orphan Man, Standing

1882

Weeping Woman

Weeping Woman

1883

Farming Village at Twilight

Farming Village at Twilight

1884

Road behind the Parsonage Garden in Nuenen

Road behind the Parsonage Garden in Nuenen

1884

Peasant Woman Cooking by a Fireplace

Peasant Woman Cooking by a Fireplace

1885

This work was made in Nuenen in late spring 1885, just after Van Gogh completed The Potato Eaters (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam), in the same dark hues that reminded the artist of "green soap" or "a really dusty potato, unpeeled of course." Van Gogh was "convinced that in the long run it produces better results to paint [peasants] in their coarseness than to introduce conventional sweetness… If a pe

Flower Beds in Holland

Flower Beds in Holland

1883

Flower Nursery on the Schenkweg in The Hague

Flower Nursery on the Schenkweg in The Hague

1882

The Potato Peeler

The Potato Peeler

1885

This painting from February/March 1885, with its restricted palette of dark tones, coarse facture, and blocky drawing, is typical of the works Van Gogh painted in Nuenen the year before he left Holland for France. His peasant studies of 1885 culminated in his first important painting, The Potato Eaters (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam).

Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat

Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat

1887

Van Gogh produced more than twenty self-portraits during his Parisian sojourn (1886–88). Short of funds but determined nevertheless to hone his skills as a figure painter, he became his own best sitter: "I purposely bought a good enough mirror to work from myself, for want of a model." This picture, which shows the artist's awareness of Neo-Impressionist technique and color theory, is one of sever

Korensnijder met hoed, van achteren gezien

Korensnijder met hoed, van achteren gezien

1885

The Carrot Puller

The Carrot Puller

1885

De aardappeleters

De aardappeleters

1885

A Peasant Woman Digging in Front of Her Cottage

A Peasant Woman Digging in Front of Her Cottage

1885

Sunflowers

Sunflowers

1887

Van Gogh painted four still lifes of sunflowers in Paris in late summer 1887. There is an oil sketch for this picture (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) as well as another painting of two sunflowers also signed and dated 1887 (Kunstmuseum Bern), and a larger canvas showing four sunflower heads (Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo). Paul Gauguin acquired the two smaller works, and until the mid-1890s, when he

Fishing in Spring, the Pont de Clichy

Fishing in Spring, the Pont de Clichy

1887

In technique, Fishing in Spring is a testament to Vincent van Gogh’s friendship with Paul Signac. Van Gogh had seen works by Signac and Georges Seurat in the spring of 1886 at the final Impressionist exhibition. Signac was an eloquent spokesman for Seurat’s pioneering Neo-Impressionism, explaining it as a natural development of Impressionism. Under Signac’s influence, Van Gogh’s palette brightened

Terrace and Observation Deck at the Moulin de Blute-Fin, Montmartre

Terrace and Observation Deck at the Moulin de Blute-Fin, Montmartre

1887

This painting dates from the winter of 1887, roughly a year after Vincent van Gogh arrived in Paris to join his brother, the art dealer Theo van Gogh. It is one of a group of landscapes featuring the Butte Montmartre, a short climb from the apartment on the rue Lepic where Vincent and Theo lived. Montmartre was dotted with reminders of its quickly receding rural past—abandoned quarries, kitchen ga

Grapes, Lemons, Pears, and Apples

Grapes, Lemons, Pears, and Apples

1887

This is one of a group of related canvases featuring seasonal fruit that Vincent van Gogh painted in the fall of 1887. In these works, he simplified his palette, employed more vibrant colors, and used a thicker, broader paint application than he had earlier. Here he explored the use of complementary colors—yellow and purple, blue and orange, and red and green—in the service of chromatic intensity.

The Flowering Orchard

The Flowering Orchard

1888

The arrival of spring in Arles in 1888 found Van Gogh "in a fury of work." As he wrote to his brother Theo, "the trees are in blossom and I would like to do a Provençal orchard of tremendous gaiety." Between late March and late April, the artist dedicated fourteen canvases to the subject, working in a range of sizes, formats, and styles. This composition, dominated by the angular, elongated branch

Oleanders

Oleanders

1888

For Van Gogh, oleanders were joyous, life-affirming flowers that bloomed "inexhaustibly" and were always "putting out strong new shoots." In this painting of August 1888 the flowers fill a majolica jug that the artist used for other still lifes made in Arles. They are symbolically juxtaposed with Émile Zola's La joie de vivre, a novel that Van Gogh had placed in contrast to an open Bible in a Nuen

Self-portrait

Self-portrait

1887

Vincent moved to Paris in 1886, after hearing from his brother Theo about the new, colourful style of French painting. Wasting no time, he tried it out in several self-portraits. He did this mostly to avoid having to pay for a model. Using rhythmic brushstrokes in striking colours, he portrayed himself here as a fashionably dressed Parisian.

Shoes

Shoes

1888

Van Gogh painted several still lifes of shoes or boots during his Paris period. This picture, painted later, in Arles, evinces a unique return to the earlier motif. However, here Van Gogh has placed the shoes within a specific spatial context: namely, the red-tile floor of the Yellow House. Not only may we identify the setting, but perhaps the owner of the shoes as well. It has been suggested that

Farmhouse in Provence

Farmhouse in Provence

1888

Pairs of complementary colors—the red and green of the plants, the woven highlights of oranges and blue in the fence, even the pink clouds that enliven the turquoise sky—shimmer and seem almost to vibrate against each other. The impressionists used this technique to enhance the luminosity of their pictures. Pissarro, who helped introduce Van Gogh to these concepts, noted, "if I didn't know how col

La Mousmé

La Mousmé

1888

On July 29, 1888, Van Gogh wrote his younger brother Theo, an art dealer in a Parisian gallery, that "if you know what a 'mousmé' is (you will know when you have read Loti's Madame Chrysanthème), I have just painted one. It took me a whole week...but I had to reserve my mental energy to do the mousmé well." Van Gogh’s literary source was a popular novel from the period, whose story of a French man

The Poet’s Garden

1888

Roulin's Baby

Roulin's Baby

1888

Mme Jules Armand (Joséphine Ronin), Arles.(A. Mak, Amsterdam). (Galerie Étienne Bignou, Paris), on joint account with (Hodebert, Paris [at some point on consignment with Alex Reid and Lefèvre]); sold by (Bignou and Hodebert) to (Kraushaar Galleries, New York); sold 9 March 1927 to Chester Dale [1883-1962], New York; bequest 1963 to NGA.

La Berceuse

La Berceuse

1889

Of the five versions of Van Gogh’s portrait of Augustine Roulin, wife of his friend the postmaster of Arles, the present canvas is the one the sitter chose for herself. Van Gogh remarked that "she had a good eye and took the best." He began the portraits just before his breakdown in Arles, in December 1888, and completed them in early 1889, calling them "La Berceuse," meaning "lullaby, or woman wh

Wheat Field with Cypresses

Wheat Field with Cypresses

1889

Cypresses gained ground in Van Gogh’s work by late June 1889 when he resolved to devote one of his first series in Saint-Rémy to the towering trees. Distinctive for their rich impasto, his exuberant on-the-spot studies include the Met’s close-up vertical view of cypresses (49.30) and this majestic horizontal composition, which he illustrated in reed-pen drawings sent to his brother on July 2. Van

Ploughman in the Fields near Arles

Ploughman in the Fields near Arles

1888

Harvest--The Plain of La Crau

Harvest--The Plain of La Crau

1888

Landschap bij de abdij van Montmajour te Arles

Landschap bij de abdij van Montmajour te Arles

1888

Cypresses

1889

Cypresses was painted in late June 1889, shortly after Van Gogh began his yearlong stay at the asylum in Saint-Rémy. The subject, which he found "beautiful as regards lines and proportions, like an Egyptian obelisk," both captivated and challenged the artist: "It’s the dark patch in a sun-drenched landscape, but it’s one of the most interesting dark notes, the most difficult to hit off exactly tha

Tetards

Tetards

1884

Women Picking Olives

Women Picking Olives

1889

At the end of 1889, Van Gogh painted three versions of this picture. He described the first as a study from nature "more colored with more solemn tones" (private collection) and the second as a studio rendition in a "very discreet range" of colors (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). The present work, the most resolved and stylized of the three, was intended for his sister and mother, to w

Olive Trees

Olive Trees

1889

This is one of five pictures of olive orchards that Van Gogh made in November 1889. Painted directly from nature but animated by Seurat-like stippling and stylized passages of broken color, these works responded to recent compositions by Paul Gauguin and Émile Bernard. "What I’ve done is a rather harsh and coarse realism beside their abstractions," Van Gogh observed, "but it will nevertheless impa

Still Life of Oranges and Lemons with Blue Gloves

Still Life of Oranges and Lemons with Blue Gloves

1889

Vincent van Gogh painted this picture soon after his release from the hospital, where he was recovering from the disastrous final days of Paul Gauguin’s stay with him in Arles. In a long letter to his brother Theo posted January 23, 1889, he mentions creating this painting alongside several other issues, including the need to make money through picture sales. He likely had the market in mind in pa

The Bedroom

The Bedroom

1889

Vincent van Gogh so highly esteemed his bedroom painting that he made three distinct versions: the first, now in the collection of the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; the second, belonging to the Art Institute of Chicago, painted a year later on the same scale and almost identical; and a third, smaller canvas in the collection of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, which he made as a gift for his mother and sis

Cypresses

Cypresses

1889

Irises

Irises

1890

In May 1890, just before he checked himself out of the asylum at Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh painted four exuberant bouquets of spring flowers, the only still lifes of any ambition he had undertaken during his yearlong stay: two of irises, two of roses, in contrasting color schemes and formats. In the Museum’s Irises he sought a “harmonious and soft” effect by placing the “violet” flowers against a “pink

First Steps, after Millet

First Steps, after Millet

1890

In fall and winter 1889–90, while a voluntary patient at the asylum in Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh painted twenty-one copies after Millet, an artist he greatly admired. He considered his copies "translations" akin to a musician's interpretation of a composer's work. He let the black-and-white images—whether prints, reproductions, or, as here, a photograph that his brother, Theo, had sent—pose "as a subje

Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase

Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase

1890

This still life is not mentioned in Van Gogh’s letters and has puzzled scholars as to its place in his artistic production. The subject enjoys a certain rapport with the mixed bouquets of summer flowers he made in Paris; the quasi-abstract floral wallpaper design in the Berceuse of Arles (1996.435), and the white porcelain vase in the Irises of Saint-Rémy (58.187). However, the palette and style o

Roses

Roses

1890

On the eve of his departure from the asylum in Saint-Rémy in May 1890, Van Gogh painted an exceptional group of four still lifes, to which both the Museum's Roses and Irises (58.187) belong. These bouquets and their counterparts—an upright composition of irises (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) and a horizontal composition of roses (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)—were conceived as a series

Girl in White

Girl in White

1890

Mme Johanna van Gogh-Bonger [1862-1925], the artist's sister-in-law, Amsterdam; sold August 1908 to (J.H. de Bois [C.M. van Gogh], The Hague); sold August 1908 to Richard Kisling [1862-1917], Zürich; Mme Hedwig Glatt-Kisling, Zürich until 1929; (Max Bollag, Zürich); by whom sold 1951 to Chester Dale [1882-1962], New York; bequest 1963 to NGA.

Green Wheat Fields, Auvers

Green Wheat Fields, Auvers

1890

Green Wheat Fields, Auvers spent its early life in Germany, represented as early as 1905 by modern art dealer Paul Cassirer. F. H. Herrmann took it from Berlin to London before eventually selling it in December 1955 to Paul Mellon through the Carstairs Gallery in New York. With the exception of an exhibition at the Gallery in 1966, the painting remained in Mellon’s home in Virginia until Mrs. Mel

The Drinkers

The Drinkers

1890

During his time in the Asylum of Saint-Paul in Saint-Rémy, a small town near Arles, Vincent van Gogh made a number of copies of the work of artists he admired, which freed him from having to produce original compositions and allowed him to concentrate instead on interpretation. For this image, Van Gogh copied a wood engraving from Honoré Daumier’s Drinkers, a parody on the four ages of man. The ex

Cottages with a Woman Working in the Middle Ground

Cottages with a Woman Working in the Middle Ground

1890

The Zandmennik House

The Zandmennik House

1879-1880

L'Arlésienne: Madame Joseph-Michel Ginoux

L'Arlésienne: Madame Joseph-Michel Ginoux

1888–1889

While in Arles, Van Gogh painted two very similar portraits of Marie Ginoux, the proprietress of the Café de la Gare, wearing the regional costume of the legendary dark-haired beauties of Arles. The first version, which he described in a letter of November 1888 as "an Arlésienne . . . knocked off in one hour," must be the more thinly and summarily executed portrait in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris. In

Landscape

Landscape

1925-1928

(Galerie E. Blot, Paris), in 1912. Mrs. Julius Schmits, née Ida Haarhous [1861-1954], Elberfeld [later Wuppertal], before 1925.Daniel L. Wildenstein [d. 2001], New York; gift 1969 to NGA.

Portrait of Vincent van Gogh

Portrait of Vincent van Gogh

1925-1928

Otto Wacker, Berlin; acquired by (Joseph Stransky, New York);[1] sold May 1928 to Chester Dale [1882-1962], New York; bequest 1963 to NGA.