Amsterdam
Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South
Van Gogh Museum
February 9–June 2, 2002
The Art Institute of Chicago
111 South Michigan Avenue
September 22, 2001–January 13, 2002
The subject may be hoary, but the relationship between Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin—competitive, explosive, fertile—remains a high point of modern art history. With some 130 paintings and drawings, this exhibition makes palpable much scholarly study and proves visually enthralling. Both artists were in transition and both fed off each other, Gauguin borrowing van Gogh’s subjects, van Gogh adopting Gauguin’s more compact, linear style. Works painted by each in Arles in late 1888 during Gauguin’s eight-week visit are seen in the larger context of the two careers as well as Vincent’s utopian plans for a community of artists, the failure of which contributed to his breakdown and incarceration.