Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch post-impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life.
The first of the shows will be at the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles (mid-May 2020-18 October 2020). Although none of the artist’s pictures remain in the town where he once worked, the foundation will be borrowing ten major Van Goghs, including Tate’s Farms near Auvers (1890). Alongside the Van Goghs there will be a display of paintings inspired by them, by the Los Angeles artist Laura Owens. The Van Gogh-Owens show is organised by the foundation’s artistic director, Bice Curiger.
Van Gogh’s Greatest Letters, at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum (19 June-23 August 2020) will offer a very unusual opportunity to see the artist’s correspondence at close hand. Nearly all his surviving letters are at the Van Gogh Museum, which now has a tough conservation policy, since exposure to light can damage these fragile documents. The letters are no longer lent to outside exhibitions and are only rarely presented in the museum’s own shows under controlled light levels. Next summer, exceptionally, curator Nienke Bakker plans to show a substantial group of 40 letters, alongside 23 related paintings and 6 drawings.
In 1987 the Tokyo insurance company Yasuda (now integrated into Sompo Japan Nipponkoa) bought a version of the Sunflowers (1889)—Van Gogh's copy of the Sunflowers (1888) at the National Gallery in London. This became the centrepiece of a museum which was set up on the 42nd floor of its headquarters. The company is now creating a purpose-built museum, which is due to open on 28 May 2020 at ground level, adjacent to its skyscraper. Four months later the Sompo Museum of Art will be presenting an exhibition on Van Gogh and Still Life: from Tradition to Innovation (6 October-27 December 2020), curated by Shôko Kobayashi. Alongside the Sompo Sunflowers, it will include 25 Van Goghs, with many coming from the two Dutch collections, the Van Gogh Museum and the Kröller-Müller Museum. These will be presented alongside nearly 50 still lifes by other European artists, ranging from the 17th century to the early 20th century. By coincidence, the National Gallery’s Sunflowers will also be in Tokyo next
Adventures with Van Gogh is a weekly blog by Martin Bailey , our long-standing correspondent and expert on the artist. Published every Friday, his stories will range from newsy items about this most intriguing artist to scholarly pieces based on his own meticulous investigations and discoveries.
"As for me, I am rather often uneasy in my mind, because I think that my life has not been calm enough; all those bitter disappointments, adversities, changes keep me from developing fully and naturally in my artistic career."
Vincent Van Gogh