Exhibits Mark Centenary of Van Gogh Death

The largest exhibit of works by Vincent Van Gogh, a splendid splash of swirl and color, opened today in two museums to mark the 100th anniversary of the Dutch impressionist painter’s death.

Queen Beatrix unveiled a Van Gogh self-portrait to officially open the historic showing of 133 paintings and 248 drawings, which runs until July 29, the date in 1890 the artist committed suicide at the age of 37 in France.

Today was the artist’s birthday.

Schoolchildren gave the queen a bouquet of flowers, perhaps the most legendary subject matter of a troubled artist who sold just one painting in his lifetime but whose works command record prices a century later.

“The Sunflowers” and “Still Life With Zinnias” are but two paintings of flowers on exhibit.

Other highlights include “Starry Night,” “Portrait of the Postman Roulin,” “The Potato Eaters” and “Self Portrait With Bandaged Ear,” painted after Van Gogh hacked off his left ear in a 1888 fit of madness.

The paintings are on display at the Vincent Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, while the drawings are being shown at the Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo, about 60 miles east.

About half the 133 paintings are from collections of the two museums, the rest were loaned from private collections or other museums--including the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

The borrowed works are insured for more than $3 billion. About 500,000 tickets have already been sold and total attendance is expected to reach 1.5 million for what organizers describe as the largest-ever showing of Van Gogh’s works.

A film festival and an opera devoted to Van Gogh’s tortured final years called “Unhappy Man Dressed in Black” are part of the centenary, while a “Van Gogh Village” near the Amsterdam museum displays countless souvenirs relating to the bearded artist.

This month, Van Gogh’s “Irises” was sold for an undisclosed sum to the Getty Museum in Malibu. The painting shattered all art records in 1987 when it was bought by Australian financier Alan Bond for $53.9 million.