London's National Gallery Celebrates 200 Years with Vincent van Gogh

Sometimes you have to remind yourself that Van Gogh only painted for ten years. And it was only in the final two or three—while living in Arles and Saint-Rémy in the South of France until his death in 1890—that he painted the masterpieces that we remember him for today.

To mark its 200th anniversary, the National Gallery in London is staging a major exhibition of Van Gogh celebrating the paintings of these later years. On view are over 50 works from the museum’s collection and loaned from further afield.

Sunflowers and Van Gogh’s Chair (1888) from the National Gallery’s collection hang alongside landscapes such as Starry Night over the Rhône (1888) from Musée d’Orsay, Paris; Landscape near the Abbey of Montmajour (1888) from Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; and Olive trees with the Alpilles in the Background (1889) from MoMA, New York.

Self Portrait (1889) from National Gallery of Art, Washington, leads the charge on a collection of individuals that coloured Van Gogh’s life in these later years.

When standing in front of his portraits, it always strikes me how modern they are. How so much of what we see in painting today—that thick line framing Alice Neel‘s sitters, the strokes of yellow or green that surprise us in Chantal Joffe‘s palette, and Peter Doig‘s flat pools of colour—all have Van Gogh to thank.

Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers runs from 14 September 2024 through to 19 January 2025.

Main image: Vincent Van Gogh, The Bedroom (1889). Oil on canvas. 73.6 × 92.3 cm. © The Art Institute of Chicago.