Vincent van Gogh at the Norton Simon Museum

Despite having a career as a professional artist that was both brief and a commercial failure, Vincent van Gogh profoundly influenced the development of European art. During a short period between 1881 and 1890, he developed an expressive and now iconic style, whose emotive force inspired early 20^th-century artist groups like Die Brücke and the Fauves. The Norton Simon Museum’s holdings of works by Van Gogh represent a cornerstone of the European art collection and remain some of the Museum’s most beloved objects. They are diverse in medium and subject, comprising six oil paintings, an early drawing, an etching and an autograph letter from 1890. Displayed on permanent view, the paintings afford viewers an illuminating survey of Van Gogh’s career and form the most comprehensive collection of his work in the western United States.

The three earliest paintings in the collection date from 1883 to 1885, when the artist moved into a vicarage where his father, a minister, and his mother lived. He was poor and in low spirits, having spent the last few years between jobs as an art teacher, an art dealer and a clergyman. Isolated in the Dutch countryside, Van Gogh took an interest in painting the local peasants and farmers. He was fascinated by their austere lifestyle and hard labor, producing works such as Winter, The Vicarage Garden Under Snow (1885) and Head of a Peasant Woman in a White Bonnet (1885), where thick, impasto strokes suggest the grime and physicality of agrarian life. Although the latter painting’s title might suggest the subject was unknown to Van Gogh, the “peasant” woman depicted is in fact Gordina “Sien” de Groot, the artist’s mistress. The portrait served as one of fifty studies completed by Van Gogh in preparation for his most ambitious work yet, The Potato Eaters (1885, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam), in which she is represented seated second from the left.

In 1886, Van Gogh moved to France to begin his formal education in art. After spending two years in Paris, he shifted southward to the medieval city of Arles, where the bright sunshine inspired a more vibrant, saturated palette. His paintings of family and friends—like Portrait of the Artist’s Mother (1888) and Portrait of a Peasant (Patience Escalier) (1888)—revel in the striking use of complementary colors, such as seafoam greens and scarlet reds. His brushstrokes became smaller and more energetic as well, animating his sitters with a sense of movement and liveliness.

Although Van Gogh grew more confident as an artist in these years, he also faced mounting financial insecurities and his worsening mental health. In 1889, he voluntarily admitted himself to a psychiatric hospital in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where he continued to paint during treatment. Works such as The Mulberry Tree (1889), whose vivid colors and textured surface vibrate with a spirited energy, epitomize the rapid maturity of his late style. Following his release from the hospital in May 1890, Van Gogh moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, where he remained under the care of the psychiatrist Dr. Paul Gachet. An amateur artist himself, Dr. Gachet inspired Van Gogh to produce his first and only etching: a portrait of the psychiatrist seated in his garden, smoking from a pipe (Portrait of Dr. Gachet, 1890).

Although Van Gogh would tragically take his life just months after leaving the asylum, he had written to his brother Théo in high spirits about the positive reception of his work. In this letter, now held in the Museum’s collection, he writes with pride that “a lot of people have been to see my paintings [in Holland] and I’ve sold on better terms. It isn’t over … I’ve done better work than before, there’s still that which has been gained.”

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