You’ve got mail: pathbreaking exhibition on Van Gogh’s postman opens shortly in Boston, then heads to Amsterdam

Van Gogh: The Roulin Household Portraits is the primary exhibition to be dedicated to the work of the “postman” and his household. Opening quickly at Boston’s Museum of Positive Arts (30 March-7 September), it would later be offered on the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam (3 October-11 January 2026). 

Though Van Gogh typically led a lonely life in Provence, he discovered a real buddy in Joseph Roulin, a 47-year-old postal official on the railway station in Arles. Roulin proved loyal when instances have been powerful, later maintaining a tally of the artist when he was hospitalised after mutilating his ear. In line with Marie Ginoux, who ran the café the place the 2 males often drank, they have been “like brothers”.

By no means in his profession did Van Gogh make such a big group of portraits of a single household. He accomplished six work of Joseph, plus three sketches, and eight of his spouse Augustine, together with two with their toddler daughter. Of their youngsters, he made three work every of 17-year-old Armand, 11-year-old Camille and the toddler Marcelle.

By 1 December 1888 Vincent was in a position to report again to his brother, Theo: “I’ve performed the portraits of a complete household, the household of the postman whose head I did earlier than—the person, his spouse, the infant, the younger boy and the 16-year-old [he had actually turned 17] son, all characters and really French, though they’ve a Russian look.”

Relationship from July 1888 to April 1889, simply over half the total collection of 23 work have been performed from life and the rest have been Van Gogh’s copies or repetitions, a few of which he gave to the household. Of the 23, 12 shall be reunited in Boston and 15 in Amsterdam. Securing Van Gogh loans is all the time difficult, so this represents a substantial success by the 2 curators, Katie Hanson (Boston) and Nienke Bakker (Amsterdam).

The Boston presentation will give the chance to see two of the 5 surviving variations of the portrait of Augustine, then aged 37. She is depicted because the motherly La Berceuse (The Lullaby), clutching a rope which might have been connected to Marcelle’s cradle.

Analysis for the exhibition means that Van Gogh’s colors within the Boston portrait of Augustine have light over time. The greens within the higher background and the orange-red inscription “La Berceuse” on the crimson lower-right background, now barely seen in reproductions, would have been stronger. The pink components of the flowers within the background have additionally light, turning into whiter.

Two of the portraits of Armand, then a blacksmith’s apprentice, shall be exhibited in Amsterdam, coming from museums in Rotterdam and Essen—simply the Rotterdam work shall be on show in Boston.

Though not within the exhibition, current analysis has revealed what’s believed to be a 3rd portrait of Armand, that was beforehand thought to indicate an nameless sitter. This putting work was bought at Christie’s in 1995 for $13m and stays in a non-public assortment, however sadly it was unavailable for mortgage. Armand later in life served as a police officer, partly in Tunisia, and died in Good in 1945.

All three portraits of 11-year-old Camille, then a schoolboy, shall be included within the exhibition. Camille went on to serve within the military, for a short while in Indochina, and died in 1922 from tuberculosis that he contracted throughout the First World Struggle.

In the summertime of 1888 Augustine returned to their dwelling village of Lambesc, 80 kilometres east of Arles, to present delivery to their daughter Marcelle. Joseph remained behind in Arles, and it was on the very day of the delivery that he first posed for Van Gogh, in a willow armchair—the precise chair survives and is now within the assortment of the Van Gogh Museum.

Vincent gave his sister Wil a vivid description of his buddy in a letter: “A head one thing like that of Socrates, nearly no nostril, a excessive brow, bald pate, small gray eyes, high-coloured full cheeks, an enormous beard, pepper and salt, massive ears. The person is a fervent republican and socialist, causes very properly and is aware of many issues. His spouse gave delivery right this moment and so he’s in actually advantageous feather and glowing with satisfaction.”

On Augustine’s return, Van Gogh painted portraits of their chubby, newly born toddler. Among the many three portraits is one which bought at Sotheby’s in 2015, going for $8m to a Hong Kong collector. Together with the three, he additionally made two others of Marcelle in her mom’s arms.

Marcelle lived on till 1980, dying on the age of 92. In 1955 she was tracked down by a author and her reminiscences of Van Gogh recorded.

Clearly, due to her younger age in 1888-89, she had no direct recollections, so her data got here from different family members. Van Gogh, she stated, would come “for soup” at their dwelling. Van Gogh was a horrible cook dinner, as Paul Gauguin recalled: “Vincent wished to make a soup, however I don’t know the way he made the combination—no doubt like the colors in his work.”

Together with the Roulin portraits (and related artworks) the Boston-Amsterdam present will embody ten hardly ever exhibited letters from Joseph to Vincent, Theo and Wil, together with a number of images of the Roulin household in later life.

As for the portraits, Van Gogh gave 5 of them to the household, along with three different work. With deteriorating well being, Joseph bought all of them to the Paris vendor Ambroise Vollard in 1900, three years earlier than the postman’s dying. He was paid solely 450 francs, or simply over 50 francs (then £2) every. This was a pittance, provided that ten years earlier the one image Van Gogh is thought to have bought in his lifetime fetched 400 francs.

The Roulin portraits have been ultimately dispersed around the globe, with all however three ending up in museum collections within the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Brazil and, above all, in the USA. Solely two, these of Camille and Marcelle, stayed with Theo’s household and at the moment are within the assortment of the Amsterdam museum. Not a single one of many Roulin portraits remained in France.

Different Van Gogh information:

Wouter van der Veen, a specialist in Van Gogh’s interval in Auvers-sur-Oise, is that this week launching the Van Gogh Academy. He cites its mission as “to advance analysis, protect our collections, encourage innovation, and supply an immersive strategy to the varied locations the place Vincent van Gogh lived and labored”. This spring the Academy shall be holding an inaugural collection of excursions, lectures and different occasions.