The legend of Vincent van Gogh has always sold well. This is particularly true of Germany, where the myth of the brilliant, reclusive Dutchman gathered steam soon after his suicide as a 37-year-old in 1890. His vivid, post-impressionistic painting style and bold compositions and motifs developed a devoted following in Germany and influenced a generation of artists including the Die Brücke and Blaue Reiter painters.
The posthumous curating of the legend of the self-taught Van Gogh, who barely sold a painting during his lifetime, is the subject of a new exhibition at Städel Museum in Frankfurt am Main titled "Making Van Gogh: A German Love Story." It especially explores the integral role of gallery owners, museums, private collectors and critics in creating the myth of Van Gogh as the "father of modern art" in Germany.
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Indeed, the once-obscure artist was heralded in Germany long before most other countries, and by 1914 around 150 works by Van Gogh were already held in private and public German collections. Many are among the 120 paintings and works featured in the "Making Van Gogh" show, and are flanked by the works of his admirers, imitators, forgers and critics including Max Beckmann, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Alexei Jawlensky, Gabriele Münter and Paula Modersohn-Becker.
Modernist pioneer
The result is a certain crowd puller, with museum director Philipp Demandt calling "Making Van Gogh" the "most elaborate Städel show of all time." Having revealed that several million euros were raised by friends and sponsors of the museum for the show, Demandt opined that "without Van Gogh, the history of modernism in Germany would have been completely different."
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One architect of Van Gogh's relatively early success in Germany was undoubtedly the wife of younger brother and patron Theo, Johanna van Gogh-Bonge, who edited and published the painter's letters and sold his unknown works to German art dealers. Indeed, before the First World War, Van Gogh's paintings had appeared in almost 120 exhibitions in Germany, while his presence in the Cologne Sonderbund exhibition in 1912 is said to have consolidated the Dutch master's growing reputation as a pioneer of modernism.
Van Gogh's "Self-portrait for Gauguin" from 1888 is on show at Städel
Big in Germany
The Städel show also addresses the special role that German gallery owners and private collectors played in birthing the Van Gogh legend in the early 20th century, in addition to art critics like Julius Meier-Graefe, who portrayed Van Gogh as a tortured artist veering between madness and genius in his novel Vincent (1921).
Portrait of Doctor Gachet
As German collectors like the industrialist Karl Ernst Osthaus purchased works by the Dutchman, public museums soon followed — despite protests by artists, including in Bremen, against the supposed supremacy of French impressionism in German museum collections. Van Gogh's triumph in Germany was unstoppable it seemed. While his peculiar style evoked some criticism, his works, as the curators emphasize, soon made others euphoric.
The retrospective in Frankfurt also evokes the dark period when the Nazis labelled Van Gogh's work "degenerate," with paintings such as Portrait of Doctor Gachet, acquired by Städel in 1911 after it was initially sold by Johanna van Gogh-Bonge, having been confiscated in 1937.
The blank picture frame of the painting at the show evokes a bleak chapter of German art history. A podcast titled Finding van Gogh accompanies the exhibition and tells the story of the now-vanished masterwork that in 1990 became the most expensive artwork ever sold.
"Making Van Gogh: A German Love Story" runs October 23 to February 16, 2020 at Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main.
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Most expensive artworks sold at auction
Monet's 'Meules': $110.7 million
The French painter Claude Monet created multiple landscape series that depict the same subject in different types of light and seasons, showing off his ability to capture atmosphere. The painting "Meules" (1890), from his "Haystacks" series, fetched $110.7 million (€98 million) at a Soethby's auction — the record for a Monet and the first impressionist painting to cross the $100-million threshold.
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Most expensive artworks sold at auction
Da Vinci's 'Salvator Mundi': $450.3 million
Created around 1500, this painting of Christ attributed to Leonardo da Vinci is one of the master's 20 still existing paintings. In 1958 "Salvator Mundi" was sold for just $60 because it was thought to be a copy. But it fetched more than four times Christie's pre-sale estimate on November 15, 2017, when it was sold for over $450 million (€382 million) — setting a world record for auctioned art.
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Most expensive artworks sold at auction
Picasso's 'Women of Algiers': $179.4 million
From 1954-55, Pablo Picasso did a series of 15 paintings inspired by Delacroix's "Les Femmes d'Alger," with versions named "A" through "O." He started them after the death of Henry Matisse, as a tribute to his friend and artistic rival. "Version O" broke the world record for an auction sale, selling for $179.4 million (167.1 million euros) at Christie's in May 2015.
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Most expensive artworks sold at auction
Modigliani's 'Reclining Nude': $170.4 million
At a Christie's auction held in November 2015, seven potential buyers spent nine frantic minutes bidding on this painting. It was finally snapped by a telephone bidder from China. The nude, painted in 1917-18, provoked a scandal at its first exhibition in Paris. The police shut down the art show after a crowd gathered outside the window.
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Most expensive artworks sold at auction
Modigliani's 'Nude lying on her left side': $157.2 million
Modigliani's work "Nu couché (sur le côté gauche)" caused such a controversy when it was first shown in Paris in 1917 that the police had to close the exhibition. The Italian artist's oil painting became the most expensive artwork to have been sold at New York auction house Sotheby's in May 2018.
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Most expensive artworks sold at auction
Klimt's 'The Woman in Gold': $135 million
This 1907 painting by Gustav Klimt is considered one of the most elaborate and representative of his "golden phase." In 2006, it was sold through a private sale brokered by Christie's for a record sum for a painting, $135 million. That same year, Jackson Pollock's classic drip painting "No. 5 1948" broke that record, obtaining $140 million through another private sale.
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Most expensive artworks sold at auction
Van Gogh's 'Portrait of Dr. Gachet': $149.7 million
Van Gogh allegedly said of the homeopathic doctor Dr. Gachet, whom he painted here in 1890, that "he was sicker than I am." The plant is a foxglove, which is used to make the drug digitalis. In 1990, the work was auctioned off to Ryoei Saito, Japan's second-largest paper manufacturer, for $82.5 million, making it the world's priciest painting at the time (the price above has been adjusted).
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Most expensive artworks sold at auction
Bacon's 'Three Studies of Lucian Freud': $142.4 million
This 1969 triptych documents Francis Bacon's friendship and rivalry with fellow painter Lucian Freud. At the time it was sold, in November 2013, it obtained the highest price for a work of art at an auction, until Picasso - and now Modigliani - surpassed that record in 2015.
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Most expensive artworks sold at auction
Renoir's 'Dance at Moulin de la Galette': $141.7 million
This 1876 work by Impressionist master Renoir depicts a dance venue for high society on the outskirts of Paris, the Moulin de la Galette. One of Renoir's most famous works, it exudes the joie de vivre that is characteristic of his style. In 1990, the work was purchased for $78.1 million (adjusted price above) by Japanese buyer Ryoei Saito, along with van Gogh's "Portrait of Dr. Gachet."
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Most expensive artworks sold at auction
Picasso's 'Boy with a Pipe': $130.7 million
This portrait of an adolescent holding a pipe and wearing a garland of flowers in his hair was created during the Spanish master's "Rose Period" in 1905. Just a little under a century later, the painting fetched an impressive sum of $104.2 million at a Sotheby's auction in 2004 (price adjusted above).
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Most expensive artworks sold at auction
Munch's 'The Scream': $119.9 million
This agonizing character painted by Edvard Munch is one of the most iconic paintings in the world. The Expressionist artist had actually made four versions of it: Three are in Norwegian museums, and the fourth one was sold for the screeching price of $119.9 million in May 2012 at Sotheby's, which would be adjusted to $130.7 million today.
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Most expensive artworks sold at auction
Picasso's 'Young Girl with a Flower Basket': $115 million
Picasso is well represented among the highest earning painters. His 1905 masterpiece "Fillette a la corbeille fleurie" ("Young Girl with a Flower Basket") was sold – along with two other Rose Period paintings – by the artist himself to writer Gertrude Stein in a sale that helped launch his career. The work, which was later part of David and Peggy Rockefeller's collection, sold for $115 million.
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Most expensive artworks sold at auction
Picasso's 'Nude, Green Leaves and Bust': $106.5 million
Inspired by his mistress Marie-Thérèse Walther, Picasso created this painting in a single day in 1932. If you add the eight minutes and six seconds it took for the auction record bid at Christie's in May 2010, it still appears to be well-invested time. Its price could be adjusted to $115.7 million today.
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Most expensive artworks sold at auction
Botticelli's 'Young Man Holding a Roundel': $92.2 million
Sandro Botticelli's masterpiece was sold at auction at Sotheby's in January 2021 for $92.2 million. The Italian Renaissance master had never fetched so much at auctions before. Prior to the sale, the work had been estimated at about $60 million.
Author: Elizabeth Grenier, Kate Müser
