Van Gogh Reading
Van Gogh and the Seasons opened at NGV last week, and has already become a must see exhibit for both locals and visitors. If you haven't already, make sure you add it to your dairy and list of things to see, it is open until 9 July 2017.
If you're an inquisitive person like I am, once you leave the exhibition you will be craving more. The paintings will not leave your mind and you will be super curious about Vincent Van Gogh, about his life, his interests, the time he lived in, you'll want to learn more about the paintings you've seen and even curious about other paintings you have not.
The way I feed my curiosities is obviously by finding the answers to my questions and that usually starts with books! So I headed straight to the NGV Design Store (Book Store) to see what I could find on their well stacked shelves and here they are:
- Van Gogh - The Life
by Gregory White Smith, Steven Naifeh
Published by Profile Books
"Vincent van Gogh created some of the best loved - and most expensive - works of art ever made, from the early The Potato Eaters to his late masterpieces Sunflowers and The Starry Night. He had worked as an art dealer, a missionary and as a teacher in England, and only in his late twenties did he begin a life that would be fundamental in shaping modern art. But when he died in Auvers-sur-Oise in 1890 at the age of thirty-seven he was largely unknown. Written with the cooperation of the Van Gogh Museum, Pulitzer-winning authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith recreate his extraordinary life, and the inside of his troubled mind, like never before - and they put forward an explosive new theory challenging the widespread belief that Van Gogh took his own life. Drawing for the first time on all of his (and his family's) extensive letters, which offer exquisite glimpses into his thoughts and feelings, this is the definitive portrait of one of the world's cultural giants." - Profile Books
2. Fondation Vincent Van Gogh Arles - Van Gogh Live! Inauguration
by Luc Hoffmann, Maja Hoffmann, Bice Curiger, Guillaume Mansart, Timothée Chaillou, Sjraar van Heugten, Patricia Falguières, Julian Heynen, Matthias Haldemann
Published by The Vincent Van Gogh Foundation/Analogues
This publication celebrates a new institution for art in a historical location. “Van Gogh Live!”, the exhibition to inaugurate the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles, is curated by the institution’s artistic director, Bice Curiger. The spirit and legacy of this exceptional and profoundly influential artist is honoured and explored in an extraordinary building that unites Van Gogh’s original paintings with contemporary art. Taking place in Arles, where Van Gogh created his most important works, the event attests to the dynamic, innovative cultural life emerging in this city in concert with other pioneering projects. - The Vincent Van Gogh Foundation/Analogues
3. Vincent van Gogh: Meet the Artist!
by Patricia Gies
Published by Chronicle Books
Vincent van Gogh: Meet the Artist! takes young readers of all ages on a colorful, interactive journey through the work of this revered Dutch painter. Three-dimensional pop-ups, removable artwork, flaps and tabs, and art activity suggestions and materials are among the many interactive components in the latest addition to the Meet the Artist! series. This book covers Van Gogh's artistic career, focusing on his time in Arles from 1888 to 1889 when he created several of his most famous works, such as Bedroom in Arles, his series on sunflowers, and Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat. - Chronicle Books
4. VAN GOGH and the Seasons: An Art Book For Kids
by NGV
Join Theo, a little field mouse, to find out about Vincent's lifelong love of the seasons and the world around him. Along the way, there are activities and quizzes for you to do with your family and friends. - NGV
5. VAN GOGH AND THE SEASONS
by NGV
The changing seasons was an aspect of nature that Vincent van Gogh found particularly captivating. For him, the four seasons represented the continuous cycle of nature and humanity, and demonstrated the existence of a higher force. Throughout his career, Van Gogh made paintings and drawings depicting the seasons, often linking them to rural life. The subject is clearly evident in his early watercolours as well as in many later paintings of fruit orchards in bloom (spring); the wheat harvest and the reaping of the wheat (summer); sowers and the grape and olive harvests (autumn); and a plough and harrow on bleak fields (winter). Van Gogh and the Seasons is the first publication devoted to this central aspect of his art. Beautifully illustrated and featuring essays by Van Gogh experts Sjraar van Heugten and Joan E. Greer, this fascinating book sheds new light on the much-loved artist’s extraordinary creative vision. - NGV
6. MUNCH Van Gogh
Edited by Maite van Dijk, Magne Bruteig, and Leo Jansen; With contributions by Reinhold Heller, Jill Lloyd, and Uwe M. Schneede
A beautiful and insightful examination of the parallels between two of the 19th century's most famous artists. The affinities between Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) and Edvard Munch (1863–1944) have long been noted, yet a formal comparative study of the two artists has never been made. Known for emotionally charged paintings, deeply personal and innovative styles, and dramatic lives of hardship, both Van Gogh and Munch fundamentally shaped the modern art movement in late-19th-century Europe. Munch:Van Gogh is the first publication to compare these two infamous and influential artists side by side, offering a groundbreaking critical examination of the parallels between their oeuvres and artistic ambitions. Gorgeously illustrated, the book offers a close consideration of the artists’ uses of color, stylization, brushwork, and unconventional compositions in both paintings and drawings. The authors also draw connections between Van Gogh’s and Munch’s evocative and poignant correspondence with family and friends, allowing readers to understand more profoundly the essence of their art. - Yale University Press
7. GOLTZIUS To VAN GOGH Drawings and Paintings from the P. & N. de Boer Foundation
by G. Luijten Ed. H. Buijs
Published by Paris/Amsterdam/Bussum, Fondation Custodia/P. & N. de Boer Foundation, Thoth Publishers
The Amsterdam art dealer Piet de Boer (1894-1974) built up a major collection of paintings and drawings during his lifetime, and in 1964 he decided to transfer it to the P. & N. de Boer Foundation. This book contains a choice selection of works that reflects the breadth of what was harvested: from drawings and paintings by Hendrick Goltzius, Jacques de Gheyn and many other sixteenth- and seventeenth-century masters, to a small core of works by Vincent van Gogh.
8. VAN GOGH'S EAR The True Story
by Bernadette Murphy
published by Penguin
On a dark night in Provence in December 1888 Vincent van Gogh cut off his ear. It is an act that has come to define him. Yet for more than a century biographers and historians seeking definitive facts about what happened that night have been left with more questions than answers. In Van Gogh’s Ear Bernadette Murphy sets out to discover exactly what happened that night in Arles. Why would an artist at the height of his powers commit such a brutal act? Who was the mysterious ‘Rachel’ to whom he presented his macabre gift? Was it just his lobe, or did Van Gogh really cut off his entire ear? Her investigation takes us from major museums to the dusty contents of forgotten archives, vividly reconstructing the world in which Van Gogh moved – the madams and prostitutes, café patrons and police inspectors, his beloved brother Theo and his fellow artist and house-guest Paul Gauguin. With exclusive revelations and new research about the ear and about ‘Rachel’, Bernadette Murphy proposes a bold new hypothesis about what was occurring in Van Gogh’s heart and mind as he made a mysterious delivery to her doorstep that fateful night. Van Gogh’s Ear is a compelling detective story and a journey of discovery. It is also a portrait of a painter creating his most iconic and revolutionary work, pushing himself ever closer to greatness even as he edged towards madness – and one fateful sweep of the blade that would resonate through the ages.
- Penguin
If you have any suggestions for other books on Van Gogh that you may have read please comment below.
Here's a link to my post: Van Gogh and the Seasons Exhibition at NGV.
Here's the link to the NGV Website for more info.
Here's a link to the NGV Design Store if you're curious to see what else they sell.