Van Gogh's Bedrooms in Chicago

Van Gogh's Bedrooms is a very unusual exhibition opens in the Regenstein Hall of The Art Institute of Chicago today. It closes 10th May 2016. While most of us won't be able to see it in person, there are quite a few resources online which allow us to appreciate some of the effort which has gone into this exhibition.

At the end of this post I've also listed my very extensive list of posts on this blog about Van Gogh and his drawings, paintings, flowers, gardens and other exhibitions and videos! I hope they are of interest to artists and art lovers alike - I know I enjoyed my own research!

Van Gogh's Bedrooms

This site provides you with a preview of the exhibition

• this page tells you about the three different versions of the bedroom in the Yellow House in Amsterdam, Paris and Chicago. (I never even realised there were were three paintings!) - and also looks at each of the different elements in turn.
• this is a museum blog post about the exhibition
• This is a video by Gloria Groom who is the Curator of the exhibition

• This is a really interesting video about the science involved in the collaboration between the three museums to determine the differences between the three paintings - looking at paint and painting techniques and the inner structure of the three paintings. Really fascinating stuff!

• PLUS Van Gogh's bedroom in Arles has been recreated and is available to book via AirBnB - see all 7 photos of the room

As part of a promotional campaign, The Art Institute of Chicago commissioned a recreation of the famous room, which rents for just $10 a night in Chicago's River North neighborhood.

The odd thing is that I think the recreation of the room may have backfired. There are masses of news inches devoted to the AirBnB bedroom and not so much to the exhibition!

More about Van Gogh and his art

Those interested in Van Gogh will find more reading in my posts about Van Gogh on this blog.

Van Gogh and Drawing

"I sometimes think there is nothing so delightful as drawing." Vincent van Gogh ( 1853 - 1890)

• Van Gogh: Drawing media and techniques (2007) - This post focuses on Van Gogh's drawing materials and how they influenced his style.
• Van Gogh: More About Drawing (2007) - Links to websites which provide a very useful perspective on Van Gogh's approach to drawing
• Van Gogh: Drawing Landscapes (2007) - More about Van Gogh and Drawing - this post focuses on his landscape drawings.
• Van Gogh: Drawing Figures, Portraits and Self-Portraits (2007) - At one stage in his career, Van Gogh hoped to be a portrait painter in Paris.

Van Gogh's Paintings

• Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings (Taschen) - This comprehensive study of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) represents a rarity in art history: a detailed monograph on his life and art combined with a complete catalogue of his 871 paintings.

Flowers and gardens by Van Gogh

• Flowers in Art - and Van Gogh #1 (2007) - Copying the paintings of other artists in order to learn new skills is an age old tradition and one in which Van Gogh himself followed
• Flowers in Art: Van Gogh #2 - Sunflowers and the value of repetition (2007) - Van Gogh painted a series of sunflowers. Initially four in Arles - two of which he hung in Gauguin's bedroom in the Yellow House in Arles and then subsequently another three which were copies.
• Hokusai, Van Gogh and the iris paintings - Van Gogh's iris paintings were produced while he was resident in an asylum in Saint-Rémy, France.
• Gardens in Art: Drawings and Paintings by Van Gogh (2007) - I've very much enjoyed doing the research for images, information and links about the drawings and paintings Van Gogh made of gardens

Other Exhibitions 

• The Real Van Gogh at the Royal Academy
• The Real Van Gogh - Portraits (2010) - This post highlights what I learned about Van Gogh's portrait painting from the exhibition - and the context of Van Gogh's letters.
• The Real Van Gogh - Orchards and Blossom (2010) - Van Gogh was very interested in Japanese art. Blossom time meant the countryside around about Arles became for him the western equivalent
• Van Gogh and the Yellow House in Arles Feb 11, 2010 - One of the joys of visiting the Van Gogh exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London is being able to see the painting of the yellow house
• The economic impact of Van Gogh's Drawings (2007) - It's estimated that the exhibition "Vincent Van Gogh: the Drawings" generated $251 million in spending by regional, national, and foreign tourists to New York
• Van Gogh and John Updike - a review -  a wonderful essay/review by John Updike of the 2005 exhibition of Van Gogh Drawings at the Met. in New York

Other videos

• Vincent Van Gogh's Notebooks Dec 10, 2014
• Video: Vincent van Gogh at the Musée d'Orsay (2009) - Almost any of Van Gogh's  paintings are worth looking at very closely

Miscellaneous posts about Van Gogh

Below is a list of my blog posts about Vincent Van Gogh excluding those listed above

• Introduction to the Van Gogh Project - about a project to study Van Gogh
• Van Gogh, colour and a colour study - Van Gogh's letters contain some 324 references to colours. The Van Gogh Musuem also has some interesting narrative about use of colour
• The Visual Translation of Japan in Late 19th-Century Paris - about the impact of Japanese prints on artists in late 19th century
• A map of Van Gogh's London - Did you know that Van Gogh lived in London for a while?