The seminars have been jointly organized since 2007 by the Van Gogh Museum and the University of Amsterdam, as part of the Art History Master’s course. The aim is to encourage students to perform in-depth study of an important theme relating to the Van Gogh Museum’s collection.
Visiting Fellow 2023
11 - 16 June 2023
The subject of this year's Visiting Fellow is the always fascinating relationship between Van Gogh and Gauguin, especially as reflected in their artistic legacies. Prof Belinda Thomson (Honorary Professor Edinburgh College of Art) is hosting the seminar Curating their Legacies. The Packaging and Presentation of Van Gogh and Gauguin.
The theme of this year’s seminar will be the enduringly fascinating relationship between Van Gogh and Gauguin, particularly as it played out in their artistic legacies. While Van Gogh was sceptical of ambition and felt Gauguin to be far more motivated by dreams of success, both artists were destined to achieve posthumous recognition beyond their wildest dreams.
Lecture on Sunday 11 June
In the English-language lecture Van Gogh versus Gauguin: Friendship, Competition, Rivalry; Simplification, Distortion, Drama, Belinda Thomson explores how Van Gogh and Gauguin are often compared with each other.
Previous Visiting Fellows
Prof Frances Fowle (University of Edinburgh and National Galleries of Scotland) gave a seminar entitled: Women collectors of 19th-century art: influence, philanthropy, exchange.
In 2021 our Visiting Fellow was Prof. Emeritus Dario Libero Gamboni (University of Geneva, Switzerland). Gamboni completed his studies at the University of Lausanne and EHESS, Paris. He has published widely on various areas of nineteenth-century art history, with a focus on the period around 1900.
One of his recent topics has been artists’ and collectors’ museums, the subject of this year’s online lecture on 6 June. Watch the full lecture on YouTube.
Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the planned Visiting Fellow for 2020 could not take place.
Prof. dr. Neil McWilliam has given a seminar entitled Tradition and Identity: The Nation in 19th-Century Art. During this series, the question was examined to what extent nationalism manifested itself in nineteenth-century art.
Frances Connelly, Ph.D., Professor of Modern Art at the University of Missouri-Kansas City has given a seminar entitled: The Grotesque in Late Nineteenth-Century.
Prof. Willa Silverman, Mailvin E. and Lea Porfessor of French and Jewish Studies, Penn State University, Pennsylvania, USA. The title of her seminar was: Art and Life in Belle Époque Paris: Collectors, Decorative Artists, Esthetics.
Prof. dr. Richard Thomson, Watson Gordon Professor of Fine Art at The University of Edinburgh, gave a seminar entitled: The Low Life of Paris and the High Culture of France. Some Themes and Questions, 1850-1914.
Prof. em. Reinhold Heller, The University of Chicago, Edvard Munch : Vincent Van Gogh. Explorations of Affinity, Influences and Reputations.
Dr Gloria Groom, The Art Institute of Chicago, Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity.
Prof. Michael Zimmerman, Katholischen Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Cézanne – Reinventing the Still-Life Tradition. Opticality, Reality, Allegory.
Prof. Petra ten Doesschate Chu, Seton Hall University, In Search of the ‘Pleasing, Saleable…’. Marketing Contemporary Art in Nineteenth-Century Europe and America.
Prof. John House, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Horizontal History. Rethinking Later Nineteenth-Century French Painting.
Prof. Gabriel P. Weisberg, University of Minnesota, Illusions of Reality.
Prof. June Hargrove, University of Maryland, Paul Gauguin: Decorating our Dream.
Prof. Patricia Mainardi, City University of New York, Word & Image 1780–1900.
Prof. Richard Thomson, University of Edinburgh, Style versus the State: Naturalism and Avant-gardism in France, 1885–1900.
