National Gallery of London to celebrate its bicentenary with special Van Gogh exhibition

CAIRO – 26 June 2022: The National Gallery of London will celebrate its establishing anniversary in June of 1824 with a blockbuster exhibition on Van Gogh.

Art Newspaper revealed that the show will focus on the artist's period in Provence where he produced his greatest work.

This extraordinary exhibition is scheduled to run from September 2024 to January 2025. There will be at least 50 works on display, mostly paintings, making it the largest exhibition of Van Gogh's work in the UK since the 2010 Royal Academy Fair which attracted 411,000 visitors.

The National Gallery’s exhibition, provisionally titled “Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers” is to begin with the period when Van Gogh was in Arles. He arrived there from Paris in February 1888, seeking the strong sunlight of southern France having initially stayed in a small hotel, later taking a room over a café and then moving to the Yellow House.

In October 1888, Paul Gauguin joined Van Gogh, and initially set up their easels side by side but their collaboration came to a shocking end on the evening of December 23 of the same year, when Gogh disfigured his ear. Although the wound healed quickly, mental scars remained.

By May 1889, Van Gogh realized that he was unable to live independently. He then moved to a refuge on the outskirts of the neighboring town of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where he stayed for a year. His salvation was painting. It gave him a reason to live.

The National Gallery in London is the most suitable place to revive Van Gogh's works, as one of its greatest treasures is the original copy of Gogh’s “Sunflowers” painting on a yellow background. This was painted in August 1888 to decorate Gauguin's bedroom.