A Coup for LACMA

As an avant-garde artist, Vincent van Gogh never enjoyed broad acceptance in his time: He sold only one of his paintings. Toward the end of his life, thanks to the support of his brother, some fellow artists and a handful of visionary critics, the Dutch-born painter was able to put together major works for exhibitions in Paris and Brussels.

After his death at 37, many of these paintings remained in the hands of Van Gogh’s family, and they are the core of the collection in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. From Sunday until May 16, many of these treasures will be exhibited at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Taken as a group, the paintings track the painter’s life. “The Potato Eaters” was painted when the artist was living in Nuenen, Holland, in 1885, and “A Pair of Shoes” was done after he moved to Paris in late 1885 or early 1886. And there are pieces done later in southern France: “The Harvest” (1888), painted in Arles, “Wheatfields With a Reaper” (1889) and “Wheatfields With Crows” (1890), painted at Saint-Remy-de-Provence.

The Van Gogh Museum selected the National Gallery of Art in Washington and LACMA to exhibit the works in America, and the choice of the Southern California museum testifies to LACMA’s impressive comeback as a world-class institution.

Major exhibits like the Van Gogh illuminate and energize the fine arts in our region and boost membership at art museums. Just within the past year LACMA has attracted 40,000 new members. The shows also perform a public service. LACMA projects that 6,000 schoolchildren from throughout the area will attend the Van Gogh show without charge and more than 1,600 teachers will receive exhibition-related materials.

In all, close to a million Southern Californians are expected to see the exhibition, perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.