Paul Cezanne is famed for the tilted apples in his nonetheless lifes, Paul Gauguin selected mangoes to conjure up unique Polynesia, however Van Gogh was content material with the common-or-garden potato. His works type the centrepiece of a show on Van Gogh and the Potato, which opens tomorrow (11 October) and runs till 1 February 2026 on the Noordbrabants Museum within the southern Dutch metropolis of ’s-Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch).
The focussed, small exhibition contains Nonetheless life with Potatoes (autumn 1886), which depicts what have simply been recognized as “rat’s backs”. This selection, identified in French as “la ratte”, might have gotten its title as a result of its curved form and speckled pores and skin is disturbingly just like that of a rat. Within the Netherlands they’re known as “muizen” (mice). However regardless of its unsavoury names, it’s a lot wanted for its nutty flavour and clean texture.
Though it was lengthy thought that Nonetheless life with Potatoes was painted in 1885 in Nuenen, the village the place Vincent’s mother and father lived, curators at Rotterdam’s Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum now imagine that it was finished a 12 months later in Paris. The depicted earthenware casserole is French and a Paris firm’s stamp has been discovered on the reverse of the canvas.
Van Gogh’s lithograph of The Potato Eaters (April 1885)
Kunstmuseum, The Hague
Van Gogh and the Potato contains 5 Van Gogh work, two drawings and a print, all regarding the theme. The Van Gogh print is a lithograph made after his early Nuenen masterpiece, The Potato Eaters (April-Might 1885). This portray (at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum) and preliminary oil examine (at Otterlo’s Kröller-Müller Museum) couldn’t be borrowed.
What the show does have is a crucial examine for one of many figures within the The Potato Eaters, that of Gordina de Groot. In an bold acquisition for a regional museum, the Noordbrabants efficiently raised €8.6m to purchase the portray final 12 months.
Van Gogh’s Head of a Girl (Gordina de Groot) (March-April 1885)
Het Noordbrabants Museum, s’Hertogenbosch ({photograph} Peter Cox)
In a letter to his brother Theo, Vincent described the faces of the Nuenen peasants in his work as “one thing like the color of a extremely dusty potato, unpeeled after all”. Helewise Berger, the Noordbrabants Museum curator, describes Van Gogh’s potatoes as “peasant gold”, since they had been then the principle dish in farming communities. She believes they carry a transparent message: “Van Gogh discovered deep that means in how intently folks lived with nature within the countryside.”
As Vincent wrote to Theo: “If a peasant portray smells of bacon, smoke, potato steam—nice—that’s not unhealthy—if a steady smells of manure—very nicely, that’s what a steady’s for—if the sphere has an odour of ripe wheat or potatoes or—of guano and manure—that’s actually wholesome… a peasant portray mustn’t change into perfumed.”
Van Gogh later deserted the potato as a topic for nonetheless lifes when he left the countryside for town. In Paris he turned to flowers, having fun with their vivid hues. He in all probability realised the marketplace for flower work can be a lot better than peasant research.
Extra importantly, after his transfer to France he found the Impressionists—and their use of color. After his subsequent transfer to Provence, he went on to color sunflowers, revelling within the vary of yellows of their blooms.
Together with Van Gogh and the Potato, the Noordbrabants Museum additionally has a everlasting show on Van Gogh, for the reason that artist’s household all the time lived within the area. Vincent was born within the village of Zundert (50km from Den Bosch) and labored for 2 years in Nuenen (30km from Den Bosch).
Within the subsequent couple of years the Noordbrabants Museum is planning two exhibitions exploring the affect of Van Gogh on early-Twentieth Dutch century artists: Jan Sluijters in 2026 and Suze Robertson in 2027.
Martin Bailey is a number one Van Gogh specialist and particular correspondent for The Artwork Newspaper. He has curated exhibitions on the Barbican Artwork Gallery, Compton Verney/Nationwide Gallery of Scotland and Tate Britain.
Martin Bailey’s latest Van Gogh books
Martin has written numerous bestselling books on Van Gogh’s years in France: The Sunflowers Are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh’s Masterpiece (Frances Lincoln 2013, UK and US), Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence (Frances Lincoln 2016, UK and US), Starry Night time: Van Gogh on the Asylum (White Lion Publishing 2018, UK and US) and Van Gogh’s Finale: Auvers and the Artist’s Rise to Fame (Frances Lincoln 2021, UK and US). The Sunflowers are Mine (2024, UK and US) and Van Gogh’s Finale (2024, UK and US) are additionally now obtainable in a extra compact paperback format.
His different latest books embody Residing with Vincent van Gogh: The Houses & Landscapes that formed the Artist (White Lion Publishing 2019, UK and US), which gives an outline of the artist’s life. The Illustrated Provence Letters of Van Gogh has been reissued (Batsford 2021, UK and US). My Buddy Van Gogh/Emile Bernard gives the primary English translation of Bernard’s writings on Van Gogh (David Zwirner Books 2023, UKand US).
To contact Martin Bailey, please e-mail vangogh@theartnewspaper.com
Please be aware that he doesn’t undertake authentications.
Discover all of Martin’s adventures with Van Gogh right here
