Installation view: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. From left to right: Sunflowers, 1887, oil on canvas, L'Arlésienne, 1888-89, oil on canvas and Oleanders, 1888, oil on canvas.
Beginning in August 2018, patrons of the Metropolitan Museum of Art will have the uncommon fortune of visiting the museum’s complete collection of paintings by Vincent van Gogh. The popular artworks are now settled in their permanent galleries, a brief pause from their global excursions. This event is marked by the recent homecoming of L’Arlésienne, 1888-89; a prominent collection piece returning from its featured position in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, exhibition, “Van Gogh and Japan.” Despite the current reunion, one lone canvas will be departing earlier than the rest, Madame Roulin and Her Baby, 1888, which will be displayed at the Frans Hals Museum in “Franz Hals and the Modernists” (October 12, 2018 – February 24, 2019).
Installation view: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. From left to right: Oleanders, 1888, oil on canvas and Cypresses, 1889, oil on canvas.
With a comprehensive set of van Gogh paintings now on view, visitors are able to explore his stylistic development. The collection features compositions painted early in the artist’s career, such as the darkly hued The Potato Peeler, 1885, alongside artworks produced later, exemplified by Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase; a painting created during his last year of life, 1890. A visitor needs only to stand and observe Woman Cooking by a Fireplace, 1885, composed in his birthplace of Holland, to uncover the artist’s geographic journey – as Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat, 1887, one of van Gogh’s twenty self-portraits completed in Paris, is painted on the canvas's reverse. The 16 exemplary canvases will be on view until February 2019.
