A series of works by world-renowned Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh will be displayed at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston from the end of March through early September.
Focused around on the “Roulin Family Portraits,” the MFA said in a news release that it marks the first exhibition “devoted to the artist’s deep connection to the family and the making of their portraits.”
This is the MFA’s first art exhibition centered around Van Gogh in a quarter century.
The exhibition is organized in partnership with the Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands, according to the museum. It is the only U.S. venue co-organizing the art exhibition with the Dutch museum.
From 1888 to 1889, Van Gogh stayed in Arles, France, and forged a “cherished friendship” there with a neighboring family, the Roulins — father and postman Joseph Roulin, his wife Augustine, and children Armand, Camille and Marcelle, according to the MFA.
During this “pivotal time in his life,” Van Gogh created 26 “intimate portrayals” of the working-class Roulin family, the MFA added.
The new exhibition features 14 of these paintings and a total of 23 works by Van Gogh. Additionally, the exhibition will hold inspirations for Van Gogh, such as earlier Dutch art and Japanese woodblock prints.
Works on display derive from the MFA’s own collection, as well as over 20 loans from prominent international collections.
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Ten letters between Van Gogh and Joseph Roulin and between the artist and his siblings will also be shown in the exhibition, offering “an intimate and tender look at their friendship,” the MFA said.
“Van Gogh: The Roulin Family Portraits” exhibition will be on display to the public from March 30 through Sept. 7 in the Ann and Graham Gund Gallery.
“The exhibition gives visitors the opportunity to see the full flowering of Van Gogh’s artistic aspirations and the intensity of his focus — a clarity that may have emerged, in part, because of his very deep bonds with the postman and his family,” Matthew Teitelbaum, director of the gallery, said in a statement.
Teitelbaum added that the exhibition “tells a new and compelling story of Van Gogh’s emotional and artistic search to make a connection to a family who helped guide his last years.”
Guests to the MFA will need a time-entry ticket, which includes general admission to the museum, to visit the limited-time exhibition. Tickets are available on the MFA’s website or on-site at the museum located at 465 Huntington Ave. in Boston.
The MFA will also offer free admission to Massachusetts residents on Memorial Day (May 26) and on Juneteenth (June 19).
After the exhibition concludes in Boston, it will travel to Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum for display from October 2025 through January 2026.
Preview access is available to MFA members before the exhibition opens to the wider public from March 26 through March 29.
The MFA Boston is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday through Monday and on Wednesday and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday and Friday The museum is closed on Tuesday.
