Cézanne to Van Gogh: The Collection of Doctor Gachet

Distel, Anne, and Susan Alyson Stein (1999)

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"Cézanne to Van Gogh: The Collection of Doctor Gachet" was originally conceived as a Musée d'Orsay "dossier" exhibition organized around the Gachet family's gift to the French state and intended to acquaint the public with the personality of Dr. Gachet. It took a different turn, however, when two of the museum's long-standing partners, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, decided to participate in the project and thus give it international exposure. Since, with the exhibition of the two famous portraits by Van Gogh that were included in the centennial retrospective held in Amsterdam in 1990, virtually none of the works in the Gachet donation have ever before left France, this exhibition is not only an exciting event but also one of the unquestionable importance.

A fascinating and multisided individual, Paul-Ferdinand Gachet (1828–1909) was a homeopathic physician, an amateur printmaker and painter, and the friend and patron of a cluster of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists—including Cézanne, Pissarro, Guillaumin, Monet, Renoir, and Van Gogh—whose talents he was among the first to recognize. The exhibition presents major examples of the artists' work; it also features copies made after them at the turn of the century by Dr. Gachet, by his son, and by other amateurs in their circle, as well as a trove of "souvenirs" (artist's palettes and still-life and household objects) that record Gachet's close relationships with pioneering nineteenth-century painters.

This occasion also highlights the role of Paul Gachet fils (1873–1962), the doctor's son and namesake, who preserved his father's legacy by acting as biographer, as cataloguer and jealous guardian of the legendary collection, and, between 1949 and 1954, as munificent donor to the French state. At that time he expressed the desire, which was fully supported by the curators, to restrict loans to temporary exhibitions. However, he made it clear that those now responsible for the works would by free to judge if and when the merits of an exhibition warranted lending them. A half-century after the first gift in 1949 seems the right moment to pay homage both to Dr. Gachet and to the artists he loved.

Table of contents

Curators and Organizing Committee
Lenders to the Exhibition
Director's Foreword
Introduction
Acknowledgments

Gachet, Father and Son
Anne Distel

Portraits of Dr. Gachet and His Children

Catalogue: The Gachet Donation
Anne Distel

The Role of the Research Laboratory of the Musées de France
Jean-Pierre Mohen

Cézanne and Van Gogh

A Modern Olympia: A Technical Comparison of Cézanne's Painting and Its Copy by Paul van Ryssel (Dr. Gachet)
Danièle Giraudy

The Use of X-Radiography to Study Paintings by Cézanne and Van Gogh in the Gachet Collection
Élisabeth Ravaud

The Discoloration of Pinks and Purples in Van Gogh's Paintings from Auvers
Jean-Paul Rioux

Impressionists and Contemporaries

Amateurs in Auvers

The Greater Gachet Collection

The Gachet Donation in Context: The Known and Little-Known Collections
Susan Alyson Stein

Paul Gachet Characterizes His Father's Collection

Checklist of Artists and Works in the Gachet Collection
Julie Steiner

Summary Catalogue of Works by Major Artists
Susan Alyson Stein

Illustrated Checklist of Copies after Works by Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Other Nineteenth-Century Artists
Susan Alyson Stein

Documents

Excerpts from the Correspondence, 1889–91: Vincent Van Gogh, Theo, Dr. Gachet, and Others

Paul Gachet Fils Remembered
Michael Pakenham

Chronology
Paul Gachet
Inventory Taken After the Death of Mme Gachet
Note on Works Exhibited
Selected Bibliography
Index of Owners
General Index
Photograph Credits

Press reviews

Library Journal

"... richly illustrated presents a fascinating look at the figure of Van Gogh immortalized ..."

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Authors: Anne Distel | Susan Alyson Stein

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