The Met presents the first exhibition to focus on Van Gogh’s Cypresses

From May 22 to August 27, 2023, the Metropolitan Museum of Art presents “Van Gogh’s Cypresses”, the first show to focus on Vincent van Gogh’s Cypresses, one of the most famous motifs in modern art.

Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Image: Vincent van Gogh, “Starry Night”, 1889. Museum of Modern Art, New York.

The approximately 40 works including in the exhibition illuminates the extent of Van Gogh’s fascination with the region’s flamelike evergreens as they successively sparked, fueled, and stoked his imagination over the course of two years in the South of France: from his initial sightings of the “tall and dark” trees in Arles to realizing their full evocative potential (“as I see them”) at the asylum in Saint-Rémy. Iconic paintings such as Wheat Field with Cypresses and The Starry Night take their place as the centerpiece of this historic exhibition, which is only presented at The Met. 

“The show is a dream come true,” said Max Hollein, Marina Kellen French Director of The Met. “Marking the 170th-anniversary year of his birth, this highly focused survey unpacks Van Gogh’s distinctive vision of the commanding cypress trees. A once-in-a-lifetime gathering of works presents both an overview and an intimate glimpse of his creative process, challenging prevailing notions with fresh insights.” 
 
Juxtaposing landmark paintings with precious drawings and illustrated letters—many rarely, if ever, lent or exhibited together—this tightly conceived thematic exhibition offers an extraordinary opportunity to appreciate anew some of Van Gogh’s most celebrated works in a context that reveals the backstory of their invention for the first time.

Anchored by The Met’s Wheat Field with Cypressesand Cypresses, highlights of the exhibition includes The Starry Night(Museum of Modern Art, New York), A Wheatfield, with Cypresses (The National Gallery, London), and Country Road in Provence by Night (Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo), as well as drawings from the Art Institute of Chicago, Brooklyn Museum, and Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

Susan Alyson Stein, Engelhard Curator of Nineteenth-Century European Painting at The Met, added: “To an extent that has gone unrecognized, Van Gogh brought his trademark ambition, determination, and a rare degree of consideration—and reconsideration—to giving signature form to the storied cypresses in works as striking for their originality as for their continuity of vision.”