This was the best year for Van Gogh exhibitions in decades, with a number of shows breaking new ground. If I had to highlight the most important thing, it would be Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise: his last months, which opened in Amsterdam and still has a month of execution in Paris, at the Musée d’Orsay (until February 4, 2024). Featuring 47 of the 74 paintings made during this short period, it provides a comprehensive view of Vincent’s art just before his untimely death.
Van Gogh’s cypresses, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, focused on the artist’s time in Provence, where he lived before moving to Auvers. It was there that the cypress trees became one of his favorite motifs. The show included his most popular landscape, starry night (August 1889), on loan from the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Van Gogh along the Seine, presenting landscapes made during Vincent’s period in Paris, opened at the Art Institute of Chicago and then moved to Amsterdam, where it still has a few weeks left to run (until January 14, 2024). Explore Van Gogh’s links with other avant-garde artists who painted along the Seine in the Parisian suburbs.
Other outstanding shows of the year were: Choosing Vincent: Portrait of a Family Story (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam); Traveling with Vincent: Van Gogh in Drenthe (Drents Museum, Assen, until January 7, 2024); Van Gogh and the still life: from tradition to innovation (Sompo Museum, Tokyo, until January 21, 2024); e Vincent van Gogh: artist and reader (Museo delle Culture, Milan, until January 28, 2024).
by Van Gogh Garden in front of Debray Farm (July-August 1887)
Credit: Sotheby’s
When it comes to sales of Van Gogh works, the most expensive sold at auction this year was Garden in front of Debray Farm (July-August 1887), which went for $23 million at Sotheby’s on May 16. This was painted in Paris, at the top of Montmartre hill. The price may seem relatively modest compared to Garden with cypresses (April 1888), which had sold for $117 million in 2022, but that work was painted a year later when Van Gogh was in Provence and at the height of his powers.
Two other paintings came up for auction this year, both earlier works done in the Dutch village of Nuenen, where Vincent had been staying with his parents. Weaver looking right (February 1884) sold for $5,495,000 and Woman’s Head (Gordina de Groot) (March-April 1885) for £4,842,000.
Van Gogh’s first four drawings (1882-85) fetched lower sums: Peasant girl next to the tub (US$1,455,000), Orphan man in a top hat ($529,000), A fisherman’s head ($508,000) and Young girl with a loaf of bread ($504,000). Three versions of the engraving Portrait of Dr. Paul Gachet (June 1890) were also sold.
by Van Gogh Old man drinking coffee (November 1882)
Credit: Monique Hageman, on long-term loan to the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
But what ended up being the most surprising sale of the year was the very rare lithograph of Old man drinking coffee (November 1882). It was sold on May 10 at Leiden-based auction house Burgersdijk & Niermans, where it fetched €275,000. In an act of extraordinary generosity, the print with small watercolor additions was purchased by Monique Hageman, research assistant at the Van Gogh Museum. Hageman has given it to the Van Gogh Museum on a long-term basis, where it has just been put on temporary display, and will eventually become a legacy.
The other uplifting news of the year was the recovery of a stolen Van Gogh, The Nuenen parish garden in spring (March 1884), which had been seized when it was on loan from the Groninger Museum to the Singer Laren museum east of Amsterdam. It had been taken in Laren during a raid in 2020. The recovery operation was organized by Dutch private art detective Arthur Brand.
Arthur Brand with The Nuenen parish garden in springminutes after its recovery on September 11, 2023
Credit: Arthur Brand, Amsterdam
Last year, two important Van Gogh buildings in the Netherlands reopened after renovations. These were the inn where the artist stayed in Nieuw Amsterdam (in Drenthe) and the visitor center/museum opposite the parsonage of the artist’s father in Nuenen.
Among the prominent books on Van Gogh published this year was Christopher Lloyd’s The drawings of Vincent van Gogh. But nowadays much of the important new research on the artist is published in exhibition catalogues, which makes this year’s large number of shows particularly welcome.
Other Van Gogh news:
by Van Gogh Scheveningen beach in calm weather (August 1882)
Credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
American television producer Dick Wolf has just donated 200 works to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. These include Van Gogh’s Scheveningen beach in calm weather (August 1882), which is one of the artist’s first oil paintings. It will join what is the best museum collection of Van Gogh’s work outside of the Netherlands and France.
