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Vincent van Gogh in Paris
Masterpieces from the Van Gogh Museum

April 13 through July 15, 2001

Sponsored by the Masterpiece society of the Chrysler Museum of Art, Vincent van Gogh in Paris features a trio of paintings by the incomparable Dutch master from the famed Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. The three works -- a portrait, landscape, and still life -- not only suggest the range of subjects that occupied the artist in Paris and throughout his career, but reflect the stylistic revolution his art underwent during his stay in the French capital. For though Van Gogh's Paris period lasted only two years -- from March 1886 to February 1888 -- it literally transformed his art. In Paris the 33-year-old artist abandoned the heavy, dark tonalities and thick impasto of his earlier Dutch paintings for the brilliant, high-keyed palette and spirited, broken brush technique of the French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters. Van Gogh's enthusiastic embrace of Parisian modernism opened the door to the increasing radical works he would produce in Arles, St-Remy and, Auvers during the final two years of his tragically brief life.

Vincent van Gogh in Paris will be installed in the Chrysler's 19th-century skylight gallery, in the midst of the Museum's own remarkable collection of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings. The three masterpieces - Woman Sitting by a Cradle, Wheatfield with Lark, and Basket of Sprouting Flower Bulbs -- will be placed, quite literally, within the context of contemporary Parisian art, revealing direct stylistic and thematic links with the French paintings on view in the same space.

The Chrysler secured the loan of the three paintings through a reciprocal arrangement with the Van Gogh Museum, which since 1998 has borrowed four of the Museum's own works for special exhibitions. Once again, the Chrysler's remarkable permanent collection has inspired a cooperative exchange of masterpieces, one that will enrich the experience of visitors both here and in Amsterdam.

For More Information or Images Please Contact the Chrysler at (757) 664-6200 or museum@chrysler.org

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