Sund, Judy. True to Temperament: Van Gogh and French Naturalist Literature. Cambridge, New York, Victoria: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Thomson, Belinda, ed. Gauguin’s Vision. Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 2005. An exhibition catalogue.
———. Gauguin by Himself. Boston and London: Little, Brown and Company, 1993.
Traulbaut, Marc Edo. Vincent van Gogh. New York: Viking, 1969.
Van Gogh à Arles: Dessins 1888–1889, Documents originaux, Photographies. Arles: Fondation Vincent van Gogh–Arles, 2003. An exhibition catalogue.
Van Gogh, Vincent. The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh, trans. J. van Gogh-Bonger and C. de Dood. London: Thames & Hudson, 1978.
———. Verzamelde Brieven van Vincent van Gogh, ed. J. van Gogh-Bonger. Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek, 1953–55.
Van Meekeren, Erwin. Starry, Starry Night: Life and Psychiatric History of Vincent van Gogh. Amsterdam: Benecke N.L., 2003.
Welsh-Ovcharov, Bogmila, ed. Van Gogh à Paris. Paris: Musée d’Orsay, 1988. An exhibition catalogue.
Wilkie, Ken. The Van Gogh File: The Myth and the Man. London: Souvenir Press, 2004.
Zola, Émile. The Sin of Father Mouret, trans. Sandy Petrey. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1983.
Picture Credits
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders. The publishers will be glad to rectify in future editions any errors or omissions brought to their attention.
pp. 4, 17, 18, 30, 32, 124, 139, 163, 176, 180, 185, 186, 214, 216, 219, 227, 239, 243 & 313: Van Gogh Museum Foundation, Amsterdam; p. 6: © Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museum, USA. Bequest from the Collection of Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906; pp. 15 & 160: The Bridgeman Art Library © The National Gallery, London; p. 20: Yale University Art Gallery. Bequest of Stephen Carlton Clark, BA, 1903; p. 35: National Galleries of Scotland; pp. 55 & 150: Musée Gauguin, Papeari, Tahiti; p. 60: © Photo RMN—© Hervé Lewandowski; pp. 64 & 231: © Christie’s Images; pp. 74 & 227: Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo; p. 85: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Memorial gift from Dr. T. Edward and Tullah Hanley, Bradford, Pennsylvania 69.30.78; p. 88: © Photo RMN—© Gérard Blot; pp. 101, 144 & 213: The Bridgeman Art Library; p. 104: Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen © Photographer Pernille Klemp; p. 112: Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library; p. 116: The Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania. BF104. Photograph © reproduced with the Permission of The Barnes Foundation, All Rights Reserved; p. 130: Private Collection; p. 148: Index/The Bridgeman Art Library; pp. 192, 209 & 233: The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; p. 197: Saint Louis Art Museum. Funds given by Mrs. Mark C. Steinberg; p. 198: Collection Oskar Reinhart “Am Römerholz,” Winterthur, Switzerland; p. 201: Museum Associates/LACMA, George Gard de Sylva Collection. Photo © Museum Associates/LACMA; p. 205: Philadelphia Museum of Art: Bequest of Lisa Norris Elkins, 1950; p. 224: © Photo RMN—© Hervé Lewandowski; p. 225: Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection, 1934–391. The Art Institute of Chicago. Photography © The Art Institute of Chicago; p. 232: Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Mellon, Image © 2005 Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington; p. 253: © Photo RMN—© Bulloz; pp. 256 & 258: © Photo RMN; p. 264: Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart; p. 269: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Bequest of John T. Spaulding 48.548. Photograph © 2006 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; p. 291: Museum of Decorative Arts, Copenhagen. Photograph © Pernille Klemp; p. 294: The Samuel Courtauld Trust, Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery, London
Endpapers: Van Gogh, Sunflowers, The Bridgeman Art Library © The National Gallery, London
Acknowledgments
The genesis of this book lies in a delightful journey I made in 1999 in the company of George Shackelford and Dawn Griffin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. We traveled in the footsteps of Vincent van Gogh, from the Netherlands to Paris, Arles, St. Rémy and Auvers. En route we met Professor Jacques Chabot, great-nephew of Marcelle Roulin, the baby who sat for her portrait in the Yellow House. By the end of the journey, I was hooked on Vincent and his story.
The next impetus came from the great exhibition Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South, which I saw in Amsterdam in 2002. This show—and the admirable catalogue that accompanied it—demonstrated just how much interest, information and excitement could be extracted from these few short weeks of Van Gogh’s life.
The book that I have written is the result not only of fascination with Vincent and Gauguin but also of dissatisfaction with conventional biography.
However long a life in words may be, it seems to me, it generally fails to give the reader a sense of what it would have been like to meet the subject face to face. I wanted to write a biographical work which does just that—to put the reader in the same room as the person read about, even inside his head. The Yellow House is my attempt to do so.
In writing it, I have been helped by numerous people. First of all, my agent, David Godwin, whose enthusiastic certainty that there was a need for a new book about Van Gogh got the project in the air. My publisher in the UK, Juliet Annan, and my American editor, Pat Strachan, have been equally positive and supportive throughout. I am also extremely grateful to Martin Bailey for initial encouragement, helpful conversations about Van Gogh and, most of all, for undertaking the task of reading and commenting on the manuscript.
During many occasions while I was sitting for two portraits, Lucian Freud and I discussed Van Gogh and Gauguin; the opportunity to share the life of an artist’s studio while I was writing about the Yellow House was enormously valuable. He also kindly read and commented on my translation of Charles Morice’s “The Blue Sow” (though the Freudian Portrait of a Pig which I hoped it would inspire has not yet appeared). George Shackelford—in addition to being my guide around several Van Gogh sites on that memorable MFA Boston trip—gave me an expert assessment of some of my notions about Gauguin’s artistic influences in Arles.
I am most grateful to Nigel Lowe and Elizabeth Mack for their assistance in research in France (and to Nigel for his advice on my translations from French). Murray Pearson performed similar services in the Netherlands. Sylvie Rebuttini kindly examined the Arles census of 1886 for me. Claire Lawton has assisted me hugely in my understanding of Vincent’s mental problems—first by steering me gently away from various tempting but improbable diagnoses and then by proposing the one that I finally adopted. In addition, she kindly read through the manuscript.
The book has benefited from the work of my text editor, Sarah Day, and my picture researcher, Sally Nichols. Most of all, I am grateful to my wife, Josephine, who has—heroically—read through successive drafts of The Yellow House and made innumerable perceptive suggestions for improvement.
MARTIN GAYFORD was educated at Cambridge University and the Courtauld Institute of the University of London. He is the coeditor of the Grove Book of Art Writing. Currently chief art critic for Bloomberg, Gayford lives in Cambridge, England, with his wife and two children.
“Those weeks in Arles constitute one of the cradles of modernity. The paintings that Van Gogh and Gauguin produced when working side by side amounted to an immense breakthrough in both their personal styles and in the history of Western art…. The story is wonderfully well told by Gayford, with the rising tension of an inescapable nightmare.”
—PHILIP HENSHER, TELEGRAPH
Martin Gayford’s fascinating depiction of the Odd Couple of art history is both moving and riveting.
—VAL HENNESSY, DAILY MAIL [CRITIC’S CHOICE]
“Gayford manages to get right inside these complex minds, analyzing their thoughts, fears, ambitions, complaints, and fantasics with admirable clarity.”
—RICHARD CORK, THE GUARDIAN
“Coming to the paintings afresh from this remarkable, erudite, and thoroughly readable book, we are now able to encompass something of the reality of those extraordinary months.”
—IAIN GALE, SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY
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