We’re living through a moment in time when more and more details about Vincent van Gogh’s life and influence are coming to light. Last month, The New York Times Magazine published an expansive article exploring how his sister-in-law, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, helped secure his reputation as a vital and important artist in the years and decades following his death. And now, writing at The Art Newspaper, Martin Bailey turned his eye on some of van Gogh’s most celebrated works: his paintings of olive trees.
Historians have learned a number of things about the series, which totals 15 paintings., in recent years One of them has been redated based on a letter by van Gogh in which he described the colors found on the trees. Another turns out to have had a grasshopper stuck in it, suggesting that van Gogh was outdoors when he painted it.
The olive tree paintings are at the center of a new exhibition which was delayed by the pandemic. It’s now set to open at the Dallas Museum of Art later this year before moving on to the Van Gogh Museum next March. The trees themselves, sadly, are no longer visible — Bailey writes that most of them died in 1956 due to a frost. These upcoming exhibits, then, offer the closest alternative to seeing the trees you’re likely to find — filtered through the eye of a visionary.
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