Van Gogh’s Cypresses exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum

Mon, May 22 - Sun, Aug 27  2023

The Metropolitan Museum of Art - New York Consulate Region

Van Gogh’s Cypresses is the first exhibition to focus on the trees – among the most famous in the history of art – immortalized in a collection of signature images and illustrated letters by Vincent van Gogh. Iconic pictures as Wheat Field with Cypresses & The Starry Night take their place as the centerpiece of this presentation. Read more here.

About the exhibition

This exhibition affords an unprecedented perspective on a motif virtually synonymous with the Dutch artist’s fiercely original power of expression. Some 40 works illuminate the extent of his fascination with the region’s distinctive flamelike evergreens as they successively sparked, fueled, and stoked his imagination over the course of two years in the South of France: from his initial sightings of the “tall and dark” trees in Arles to realizing their full, evocative potential (“as I see them”) at the asylum in Saint-Rémy. Juxtaposing landmark paintings with precious drawings and illustrated letters—many rarely, if ever, lent or exhibited together—this tightly conceived thematic exhibition offers an extraordinary opportunity to appreciate anew some of Van Gogh’s most celebrated works in a context that reveals the backstory of their invention for the first time.

Van Gogh’s Cypresses Virtual Opening

June 1 from 7:00-7:30 PM will be the free virtual opening of van Gogh’s Cypresses. Tune in on the MET website or on Facebook and YouTube. Join Susan Alyson Stein, Engelhard Curator of Nineteenth-Century European Painting, to virtually explore Van Gogh’s Cypresses.