Van Gogh's Sheaves of Wheat

October 22, 2006–January 7, 2007
J. E. R. Chilton Galleries

The Dallas Museum of Art will present Van Gogh's Sheaves of Wheat, an in-depth study of a theme that both delighted and obsessed this great artist and influenced countless contemporaries and future artists. Organized by the Dallas Museum of Art and featuring Vincent van Gogh’s masterwork Sheaves of Wheat (1890) from the Museum’s own collection, this exhibition explores the artist’s fascination with the motif in his paintings, drawings, and personal letters, as well as the iconographic significance of wheat and agricultural labor in the work of other late 19th-century artists, including Paul Gauguin, Jean-François Millet, and Camille Pissarro, among others. The exhibition will have the largest collection of Van Gogh works ever displayed in the Southwest.

One of Van Gogh’s final works, Sheaves of Wheat was completed weeks before the artist’s death in July 1890. With animistic intensity, Van Gogh depicts a field of golden wheat, gathered together in freshly stacked sheaves. Other works by Van Gogh, such as Wheat Field with a Reaper (5–6 September 1889) and Corn Harvest in Provence (17–23 June 1888) help to elucidate the artist’s vision and the aesthetic evolution of the theme.

The exhibition includes the work of other 19th-century artists, including individuals Van Gogh admired and emulated, as well as artists of his generation who shared his enthusiasm and fascination with the theme. Works by Émile Bernard, Jules Breton, Charles-François Daubigny, Julien Dupré, Paul Gauguin, Léon Augustin L’Hermitte, Jean-François Millet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Félix Edouard Vallotton illustrate a range of different approaches and reveal the larger social and political issues of the time.

Van Gogh’s Sheaves of Wheat was organized
by the Dallas Museum of Art.

The exhibition is presented by

Additional support provided by One Arts Plaza by Billingsley Company, McKool Smith P.C., and Essilor of America, Inc. Opening member events are sponsored by Northwestern Mutual Financial, The Texas Financial Group – Dallas.  Air transportation provided by American Airlines.  The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Vincent van Gogh, Sheaves of Wheat, 1890, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection, 1985.R.80