Vincent van Gogh @ Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio

Van Gogh: Into the Undergrowth
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio
October 15, 2016 – January 8, 2017

Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)

Undergrowth with Two Figures, June 1890

Oil on canvas, 19 ½ x 39 ¼ in. (49.5 x 99.7 cm)

Cincinnati Art Museum; Bequest of Mary E. Johnston, 1967.1430

Centered on Vincent van Gogh’s Undergrowth with Two Figures, the Cincinnati Art Museum’s new exhibition, Van Gogh: Into the Undergrowth, will take visitors up close with celebrated woodland landscapes.

This exhibition—presented only at the Cincinnati Art Museum—brings an important group of artworks on loan from around the world together for the first time.

Exploring the works of the Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries, the exhibition traces the evolution of the Dutch artist’s love of the natural world, powers of observation and mastery of detail through this special group of landscape paintings spanning his career.

This exhibition is the first to take a close look at Van Gogh’s poetic depictions of the forest floor, known as sous-bois, the French term for “undergrowth.” These odes to nature were a reaction to the increasing industrialization and urbanization of society.

The exhibition allows visitors to compare Van Gogh’s treatment of this theme with examples by those who influenced and inspired him, including Théodore Rousseau, Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet and Paul Gauguin. Twenty artworks are borrowed from museum collections in Canada, The Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Japan and more, and are joined by works from the Cincinnati Art Museum’s own important collection of French paintings and works on paper.

“Visiting this exhibition is like taking a walk in the woods with Van Gogh and fellow artists,” explains Julie Aronson, Curator of American Painting and Sculpture. “Vincent van Gogh’s Undergrowth with Two Figures is widely recognized as one of the great masterpieces of Van Gogh’s late career. It is also a visitor favorite—often the favorite—among the many extraordinary works in the Cincinnati Art Museum’s galleries. This exhibition is a revelation that puts this significant work in the context of the art of its time.”

Since the Cincinnati Art Museum’s acquisition of Undergrowth with Two Figures in 1967, the museum has made this treasure available in major exhibitions around the world. It will travel to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 2018.

In Van Gogh: Into the Undergrowth, the painter is brought to life for visitors with his own words about the intimate relation between nature and art and the artists he admired, extensively quoted from his voluminous correspondence with his brother Theo. These letters serve as inspiration for the exhibition’s interactive activity, which involves a hands-on letter-writing experience. Another interactive will employ Google technology to allow visitors to explore Undergrowth with Two Figures on a touch screen, revealing the texture and brushstrokes of the painting in greatly enlarged detail.

With this exhibition, the Cincinnati Art Museum is leading the way with original scholarship in one of the few areas of Van Gogh study that remains to be explored. The accompanying catalogue, also titled Van Gogh: Into the Undergrowth, examines Van Gogh’s engagement with the sous-bois subject from various perspectives. Co-published by D Giles Limited, it will be available for sale at the Cincinnati Art Museum and online this fall. Cornelia Homburg, art historian and one of the world’s foremost Van Gogh experts, is among the authors. She will be speaking at the Cincinnati Art Museum on October 16.

To shed further light on Van Gogh’s artistic milieu, the exhibition will also include Unlocking Van Gogh's World, a rich display of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist prints from the Cincinnati Art Museum’s collection. In addition to Van Gogh, Artists Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edouard Manet, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Camille Pissarro, James McNeill Whistler and others will be included in this supporting exhibition.

Van Gogh: Into the Undergrowth was organized with the generous support of the Harold C. Schott Foundation. This exhibition is also supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Corporate sponsors for this exhibition include PNC, CFM International and Christie’s, along with Enquirer Media as the media sponsor.

Cincinnati Art Museum
www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org