Fulfilling an artist’s dream: a Van Gogh exhibition opens at the National Gallery

In celebration of its 200th birthday, the National Gallery has put up a special exhibition commemorating another significant anniversary: precisely 100 years ago, the gallery acquired one of its most beloved treasures—‘Sunflowers’ by painter Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). This exhibition, Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers, runs from 14th September 2024 to 19th January 2025 and will be showcasing the painter’s infamous trademark alongside more than 50 other works of the artist, some of which are being shown to the public for the very first time. Afisha.London magazine offers an exclusive early glimpse into the world of this modernist revolutionary.

The exhibition is organised into six large, themed rooms, each focusing on pivotal moments in Van Gogh’s career. Visitors will be welcomed into “The South of France” gallery, which brings to life the last three years of Van Gogh’s life, when he lived in the South of France and produced some of his most iconic works. From his home in Arles, he transformed the public garden into a subject for poetic interpretation.

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His later residence in the hospital at Saint-Rémy further deepened his creative exploration of neglected, overgrown gardens, which he reimagined with shifting colour schemes. In the years of 1888-1889, he painted these gardens in various styles, turning familiar places into powerful visual explorations.

Paintings from France, the Netherlands, Japan, the United States, and private collections will come together to form the first extensive Van Gogh exhibition ever held at the National Gallery. ‘It’s an exhibition that required a lot of friendship from other institutions,’ says Dr. Gabriele Finaldi, director of the National Gallery. These works will be displayed on walls that reflect Van Gogh’s distinctive use of colour, offering visitors a unique opportunity to view his masterpieces side by side for the very first time. Famous pieces such as “The Chair of Van Gogh”, “Starry Night”, “The Bedroom”, “The Sower”, and “Self Portrait, 1889” are brought together to echo Van Gogh’s vision of the Yellow House as a vibrant hub for artistic collaboration.

Photo: Van Gogh Museum

A highlight of the exhibition is a rare arrangement of Van Gogh’s works according to his own vision. In a letter to his brother Theo, Van Gogh imagined his “Sunflower” paintings hanging together with “La Berceuse”, a triptych he believed could provide comfort to sailors far from home. For the first time ever, this dream will be realised at the National Gallery, as the Philadelphia Museum of Art has agreed to loan their “Sunflower painting to the UK for this unique presentation.

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‘One of the things that we wanted to do was to emphasise the importance of drawing in Vincent’s career,’ says Christopher Riopelle, one of the exhibition’s curators. A room dedicated entirely to Van Gogh’s detailed sketches will bring together works the artist intended to display as a unified collection. The centrepiece will be a series of drawings depicting the ruins of Montmajour with Arles in the background—places that were close to Van Gogh’s heart. These delicate works, often dismissed, will be shown as Van Gogh considered them: equally as significant as his paintings.

Photo: Margarita Bagrova

The final room, “Portraits and Olive Trees”, presents a meditative end to the exhibition. Here, Van Gogh’s portraiture—where ordinary figures, like a simple gardener, take on an iconic, archetypal significance—will stand alongside his celebrated paintings of olive trees. In this space, visitors will encounter “Enclosed Field with Peasant”, where the local gardener becomes a symbol of the quintessential rural worker, and “The Arlésienne”, a portrait of a local woman that Van Gogh transformed into a timeless emblem of beauty.

Through a carefully curated selection of paintings and drawings, Van Gogh’s lifelong dreams and aspirations are realised in this immersive exhibition. Rare loans from international museums contribute to an experience that feels as if it was designed by the artist himself. Running from 14th September 2024 to 19th January 2025, this exhibition, Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers, invites visitors to explore the final, most profound years of a visionary whose legacy changed the course of art forever.

Cover photo: Margarita Bagrova

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