Van Gogh and the Olive Groves

Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX
October 17, 2021–February 6, 2022

Co-organized by the DMA and the Van Gogh Museum

Photos, from top to bottom:
1-5: Photo by John Smith, courtesy of Dallas Museum of Art
6, 8, 9, 11, 13: Photo by Chad Redmon, courtesy of Dallas Museum of Art
7, 10: Photo by Debi van Zyl

Van Gogh and the Olive Groves was the first exhibition dedicated to this important series of paintings, produced in the final year of the artist’s life. Fascinated by the olive trees and their ever-changing colors, van Gogh painted the groves over and over, at different times of the day and in different seasons while confined to the asylum of Saint-Rémy in Provence. The exhibition reunited ten of the fifteen olive grove paintings and exhibited them together for the first time, drawing from public and private collections around the world.

The design focused on this reunification whereby the olive grove paintings were displayed chronologically in an oval gallery, facing each other. Like spokes on a wheel, paths out of the oval led to additional paintings that explored van Gogh’s penchant for painting in series, his intense personal and spiritual views, and his shifting motivations and stylistic approaches to the olive groves.

A large portion of the gallery also revealed exciting new discoveries about van Gogh’s techniques, materials, and palette. Highlighting the results of years of collaborative scientific research, seven Conservation Discovery Stations engaged visitors, close-up, with microscopic cross-sections, hidden details, and evidence of fading pigments in the paintings.