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The Musée d’Orsay, in collaboration with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, is organizing a magnificent exhibition devoted to the last days of life and activity of the Dutch painter in Auvers-sur-Oise, a village about thirty kilometers from Paris.
Unique in its genre, this exhibition focuses on a period less known than that of the sunny landscapes of Arles and Saint Rémy de Provence, café terraces and starry nights.
As dense as it is prolific, it includes 74 paintings and more than 50 drawings, including some of his main masterpieces, which he produced at a frantic pace with at least one canvas per day over two months.
The 50 paintings and 30 works on paper exhibited in Paris, from Octo- ber 3, come mainly from the Musée d’Orsay and the Van Gogh Mu- seum in Amsterdam, but also from museums and private collections around the world.
For the first time, the last months of Vincent Van Gogh’s life in the village on the banks of the Oise are thus traced from his arrival on May 20, 1890, following his one-year stay in a nursing home in the south of France, until his death on July 29, 1890.
The artist had tried to kill himself by shooting himself in the region of the heart and succeeded two days later.Thanks to his rich corres- pondence, in particular with his brother Theo, his last days can be traced from his initial enthusiasm for this new setting which gave him hope and plunged him into passionate artistic impulses, until his last moments all marked by loneliness, inner struggle and depression.
Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)
Portrait of the Artist (detail) in 1889 Oil on canvas - h 65.0 L 54.2 cm Orsay Museum - Gift of Paul and Marguerite Gachet -
© Musée d’Orsay /Dist.RMN-
Grand Palais /Patrice Schmidt -Press service/ Musée d’Orsay