Van Gogh. “Masterpieces from the Kröller-Müller Museum” at Palazzo Bonaparte

The Renaissance Palazzo Bonaparte in Piazza Venezia hosts the most eagerly awaited exhibition of the year dedicated to one of the greatest artists of the 19th century, with masterpieces by Van Gogh from the Kröller-Müller Museum. The life of the world’s most famous Dutch artist is told through his most important paintings and drawings.

On the occasion of the 170th anniversary of the painter’s birth, the State Museum of Otterlo in the Netherlands is lending 50 exceptional works such as the famous Self-Portrait (oil on cardboard, 32.8×24 cm) painted in 1887.

The centrepiece of the exhibition curated by Maria Teresa Benedetti with Francesca Villanti is the works from the Kröller-Müller Museum. The German art collector Helene Kröller Müller, together with her husband Anton, acquired around forty masterpieces that Vincent van Gogh created during his short and troubled life between 1907 and 1939.

The corpus, which later found its way to the museum in Otterlo, bears witness to the artist’s entire expressive parabola circumscribed to the short period of ten years due to the tragic epilogue. The chronological description of the exhibition event is full of biographical evidence and references to the cycles and places where the painter lived and worked: from the Dutch town of Zundert where the artist was born and spent the first part of his life, to the Borinage where Vincent spent two years in this Belgian region rich in coal mines as an evangelist pastor, to his stay in Paris, to that in Arles, to Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where he met his ineluctable destiny.

The works

Despite a human and artistic story steeped in tragedy, Van Gogh painted a shocking series of masterpieces, accompanying his works with highly spiritual writings (the famous ‘Letters’ to his brother Theo van Gogh), creating an original and exclusive style that has crowned him among the greatest universal geniuses in the history of modern art.

Among the works on show in the rooms of the Palazzo Bonaparte are the oil paintings of The Sower, 1888, The Lover (portrait of Lieutenant Milliet), 1888, Pines at Sunset, 1889, Still Life with a Plate of Onions, 1889, Sheaf under a Cloudy Sky, 1890, as well as the famous Self-Portrait on a Blue Background with green touches already mentioned (one of more than forty paintings during Vincent’s lifetime).

The crowning glory of the exhibition are the remarkable black chalk drawings and works on paper rarely seen in the Dutch museum, including Peasant Girl Gleaning and Women Carrying Coal Sacks in the Snow, 1882.

The exhibition concludes with a number of canvases from the dramatic last period spent in the psychiatric hospital in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence (1889-1890), including Desperate Old Man (At the Gates of Eternity), 1890.

Opening hours
Monday to Friday 9 a.m. – 7 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m. – 9 p.m.

Special openings:
Tuesday 1 November 9 a.m. – 9 p.m.; Thursday 8 December 9 a.m. – 9 p.m.; Saturday 24 December 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.; Sunday 25 December 4 p.m. – 9 p.m.; Monday 26 December 9 a.m. – 9 p.m. Saturday 31 December 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.; Sunday 1 January 4 p.m. – 9 p.m.; Friday 6 January 9 a.m. – 9 p.m.