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Sarnia, ON – Enjoy a tour of the exhibition Great Masters Series: Vincent Van Gogh at the Art Gallery of Hamilton and then visit the Royal Botanical Gardens, on a bus trip with Gallery Lambton. The trip, on Saturday, September 23, 2006, will include a lovely lunch at the Gardens Café. Registration is taking place now at Gallery Lambton with a fee of $81.62 (includes G.S.T., lunch and all tours).
The Art Gallery of Hamilton offers a unique opportunity to admire a select group of masterpieces by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), loaned from museums near and far. Van Gogh is one of the most broadly loved artists of all time; his canvases consistently set record prices on the market. However, misconceptions persist regarding his life, art and the sources of his originality. Van Gogh zealously embraced his artistic profession and prolifically created close to 1,000 paintings in a career spanning only a decade (1880-90).
The focus exhibition unites five major works from each of the key periods of van Gogh’s career - his early Dutch period (1880-85), his time in Paris (1886-87), his first mature period in Arles (1888-89), and his last years in Saint Rémy and Auvers - interpreting the images contextually to provide a richer understanding of van Gogh’s approach, and to allow viewers to discover the roots and development of his style and themes.
The prestigious Musée d’Orsay in Paris agreed to lend The Saint-Paul Hospital in Saint-Rémy from its 1973-donated Kaganovitch Collection. Dating from the artist’s last period in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence and Auvers-sur-Oise (1889-90), the captivating picture shows a faceless man standing by a twisting tree outside the asylum where van Gogh committed himself in 1889. The distinctive brushwork of this late canvas underscores the painter’s development in his final years, when he complemented his bright colours with equally powerful swirling and masterful strokes. The exhibition presents four other works coming from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, and the McMaster Museum of Art in Hamilton. Each of these pictures dates from a different stage of the artist’s stylistic evolution. Together this select spectrum allows us to enjoy and understand the development of van Gogh’s colours, forms and lines, and to consider fundamentals that lay at the heart of his project, such as van Gogh’s eternal commitment to express his feelings for the world and humanity boldly in paint.
In addition to Great Masters Series: Vincent van Gogh visitors can enjoy the exhibition, Hungarian Splendour: Masterpieces from the National Gallery in Budapest. The exhibition features over 70 stunning nineteenth-century paintings. The nineteenth century was a particularly productive time for Hungarian artists, who trained and worked in artistic centres such as Munich and Paris, yet were greatly influenced by their homeland, its distinctive language and unique gypsy culture.
The bus trip will also feature a visit to the Royal Botanical Gardens, Canada’s largest botanical garden. It features 2,700 acres of magnificent cultivated garden areas and spectacular nature sanctuaries. A breathtaking drama unfolds as thousands of roses flower in June through October, including heritage varieties, along with chrysanthemums, dahlias, autumn flowers, medicinal and scented plants, herbs and annual flowers.
For more information about Lambton County, visit www.lambtononline.ca.
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Contact:
Holly Rutherford
Gallery Assistant Community Relations
County of Lambton
Telephone: (519) 336-8127
Fax: (519) 336-8128
email: holly.rutherford@county-lambton.on.ca
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