9 October 2020 t/m 10 January 2021
The exhibition ‘Your loving Vincent’: Van Gogh’s Greatest Letters offers visitors the unique opportunity to view some 40 of Vincent van Gogh’s fascinating letters, displayed alongside famous works such as The Potato Eaters (1885), The Bedroom (1888) and The Sower (1888).
Concurrently with the exhibition, the Van Gogh Museum is launching new episodes of the letters podcast (in Dutch), recorded by poet Ester Naomi Perquin, performer Huub van der Lubbe and author Abdelkader Benali.
Dutch and English versions of a new anthology of Van Gogh’s 76 greatest letters have been published to mark the exhibition. Compilers Nienke Bakker, Leo Jansen and Hans Luijten edited the internationally acclaimed six-part edition of Van Gogh’s correspondence, published in 2009.
Personal and compelling
The Van Gogh Museum is home to the majority of the 820 letters written by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), most of which were to his brother Theo. The letters are a significant means of gaining a better understanding of the man behind the artist. In a personal and compelling style, Van Gogh writes not only about his paintings – and those of other artists – and his artistic ambitions, but also about his vision of life and death, his loneliness and his need for love and friendship. These are subjects with which we can all identify.
Looking over Vincent’s shoulder
Due to their fragility and sensitivity to light, the letters are rarely exhibited. The exhibition ‘Your loving Vincent’: Van Gogh’s Greatest Letters features a varied selection of letters, combined with paintings and drawings by the artist. Van Gogh often added sketches to his letters of paintings or drawings he was working on, or of works that he had recently finished. In the exhibition, these letter sketches are displayed alongside the eventual works, so it is almost as if visitors are looking over the shoulder of the artist.
Loans
The exhibition features some 40 letters, all from the Van Gogh Museum collection. 21 paintings and drawings from the museum’s collection are also on display, as well as two paintings loaned from private collections: Landscape with Leaning Trees (1883) and Field with a Ploughman (1889). This is the first time that either painting has been exhibited alongside the letter containing the corresponding sketch.