Two Poplars in the Alpilles near Saint-Rémy (1889): Art, History and Details

Two Poplars in the Alpilles near Saint-Rémy (1889) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Vincent van Gogh painted this autumnal landscape while interned at a psychiatric hospital near Saint-Rémy in southern France. Although initially restricted to painting in his room, he soon resumed working outdoors. This painting reveals the full power of his mature style. Trees twist and lean against a darkening sky, while the intense colors applied with charged brushstrokes convey his emotional reaction to the subject.

Object facts

• Title: Two Poplars in the Alpilles near Saint-Rémy
• Date: 1889
• Creator attribution: Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890)
• Culture: Netherlands
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on fabric
• Dimensions: Framed: 81 x 66.7 x 7.3 cm (31 7/8 x 26 1/4 x 2 7/8 in.); Unframed: 61.6 x 45.7 cm (24 1/4 x 18 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1958.32

A detail from the museum

During his Saint-Rémy period, Van Gogh painted 150 canvases and some 100 drawings. He painted nature as he saw it without enhancement and felt that painting would help cure him of his illness.

Collection credit

Bequest of Leonard C. Hanna Jr.

Further reading listed by the museum

• Flechtheim, Alfred. "Kunsthaler und Sammler: Dusseldorf." In Im Kampf um die Kunst: die Antwort auf den "Protest deutscher Künstler": mit Beiträgen deutscher Künstler, Galerieleiter, Sammler und Schriftsteller. München: R. Piper, 1911.
• Pfister, Kurt. Vincent van Gogh. Potsdam: G. Kiepenheuer, 1922.
• Waldemar, George. Van Gogh: 24 Phototypies. Paris: Librairie de France F. Sant'Andrea, 1927.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.