Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat (obverse: The Potato Peeler)1887
Van Gogh looks out from beneath a straw hat, his face built from short, separate strokes of blue, orange and yellow that show how quickly he absorbed the bright palette and broken touch of the Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists after moving to Paris in 1886. More about this work
About this work
Van Gogh looks out from beneath a straw hat, his face built from short, separate strokes of blue, orange and yellow that show how quickly he absorbed the bright palette and broken touch of the Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists after moving to Paris in 1886. Short of money for models, he painted dozens of self-portraits there. He painted this one on the back of an earlier canvas, The Potato Peeler, a dark peasant study from his years in Nuenen, so the two sides record the transformation of his art within a couple of years.
Written by Ochre Editions.
How it was made
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
Vincent van Gogh
Dutch, 1853–1890 · Born in Zundert; died in Auvers-sur-Oise.
Van Gogh worked as an art dealer, teacher and lay preacher before he turned to art in 1880, at twenty-seven. His early pictures of Dutch peasants are dark and heavy; in Paris from 1886 he met the Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists, and his palette brightened. In Arles in 1888–89 he painted with intense colour and thick, directional strokes, and he worked on at the asylum in Saint-Rémy and finally at Auvers-sur-Oise. The Poet’s Garden belongs to a group made to decorate Gauguin’s room in the Yellow House.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Post-Impressionism
Artists who kept Impressionism's colour but pushed towards structure, symbol and feeling.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Met has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 67.187.70a
- Credit
- Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Type
- Paintings
- Department
- European Paintings
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
Report this work
More by Vincent van Gogh
All their works
Close in colour
