Cezanne to Van Gogh : The Collection of Doctor Gachet

by Anne Distel and Susan Alyson Stein

• ISBN13: 9780300085846
• ISBN10: 0300085842
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 1999-03-11
• Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Summary

A physician and an amateur artist, Paul Gachet appreciated at an early date the genius of a number of painters struggling for recognition, including Cezanne, Pissarro, Monet, Guillaumin, and, especially, Van Gogh. They were among the many artists who became his friends and were frequent guests at Gachet's home in Auvers, where they were invited to set up their easels and paint still lifes or to experiment with new etching techniques in his attic studio. The artists gave or sold to their host pictures that then joined his wide-ranging collection. Artists' works were also studiously copied by Gachet, his son, Paul, and other amateurs in Gachet's circle.
By the time of Dr. Gachet's death in 1909, the collection that filled his three-story house - containing paintings by now-famous Impressionist and Postimpressionist artists - had become legendary.
For the first time, the Gachet donations - which contain not only paintings but also drawings, prints, copies, and such memorabilia as artists' palettes and still-life objects - are being exhibited outside France and, in this volume, published in their entirety.

Table of Contents

Curators and Organizing Committee
Lenders to the Exhibition
Directors' Foreword
Introduction
Acknowledgments
Gachet, Father and Son	p. 3
Portraits of Dr. Gachet and His Children	p. 26
Catalogue: The Gachet Donation
The Role of the Research Laboratory of the Musees de France	p. 34
Cezanne and Van Gogh	p. 36
A Modern Olympia: A Technical Comparison of Cezanne's Painting and Its Copy by Paul van Ryssel (Dr. Gachet)	p. 39
The Use of X-Radiography to Study Paintings by Cezanne and Van Gogh in the Gachet Collection	p. 65
The Discoloration of Pinks and Purples in Van Gogh's Paintings from Auvers	p. 104
Impressionists and Contemporaries	p. 114
Amateurs in Auvers	p. 140
The Greater Gachet Collection
The Gachet Donation in Context: The Known and Little-Known Collections	p. 159
Paul Gachet Characterizes His Father's Collection	p. 177
Checklist of Artists and Works in the Gachet Collection	p. 179
Summary Catalogue: of Works by Major Artists	p. 185
Illustrated Checklist of Copies: after Works by Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Other Nineteenth-Century Artists	p. 243
Excerpts from the Correspondence, 1889-91: Vincent van Gogh, Theo, Dr. Gachet, and Others	p. 259
Paul Gachet fils Remembered	p. 270
Chronology	p. 273
Inventory Taken after the Death of Mme Gachet	p. 289
Note on Works Exhibited	p. 292
Selected Bibliography	p. 293
Index of Owners	p. 303
General Index	p. 306
Photograph Credits	p. 314
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