Vincent van Gogh, Green Wheat Fields, Auvers, 1890
Oil on canvas. 73 x 93 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
Vincent van Gogh, Head of a Peasant Woman, c.1884
Oil on canvas. 40.3 x 30.5 cm
National Gallery, London
Two paintings by Van Gogh donated to Museums Rachel Lambert Mellon, widow of Paul Mellon, has donated Vincent van Gogh’s ‘Green Wheat Fields, Auvers’ to the National Gallery, Washington. In addition, ‘Head of a Peasant Woman’ -an early Van Gogh painting- has been donated to the National Gallery of London.]]>
December 30, 2013, source: National Gallery, Washington / National Gallery of London
Green Wheat Fields, Auvers (1890)
Vincent van Gogh’s powerful and intense “Green Wheat Fields, Auvers” (1890), likely painted just weeks before the artist ended his life, went on view in the National Gallery of Art’s West Building, Gallery M-83, since December 20. The painting was bequeathed to the Gallery by renowned philanthropist, art collector, and founding Gallery benefactor Paul Mellon (1907–1999), subject to a life estate in his wife, Rachel Lambert Mellon, which gave her the right to possess the work for her lifetime. She has now relinquished the remainder of her life estate, allowing the Gallery to take immediate possession of the work.
Measuring 28 3/4 x 36 5/8 inches (73 x 93 cm) “Green Wheat Fields, Auvers” was likely painted in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, during the spring/early summer of 1890, following Van Gogh’s voluntary confinement at the asylum of Saint-Rémy. In this village just north of Paris, and as he did before in the countryside surrounding Arles and Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh painted what could be called “pure landscapes,” in addition to the Auvers Romanesque church, town hall, and picturesque thatched-roof houses.
Head of a Peasant Woman (c.1884)
An early Vincent van Gogh painting has been donated to the National Gallery, London, under the Cultural Gifts Scheme introduced by the UK Government earlier this year. “Head of a Peasant Woman” is the first early work by the artist to enter the National Gallery collection. It is also the only one painted in his native Holland and, most importantly, the first figure painting – the six other Van Gogh works in the collection (four owned by the Gallery and two long terms loans) are landscapes and still lifes.
“Head of a Peasant Woman” is one of the most appealing of Van Gogh’s series of around 40 portraits of the peasants of Nuenen. He painted them in late 1884/early 1885 when he had settled in the village, which is in North Brabant in the Netherlands, where his father was a minister. The series of paintings that he executed that winter, as he established himself as a painter of working people, is arguably the first sustained artistic achievement of Van Gogh’s mature artistic career.
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