The expert meeting Dr Gachet & Van Gogh. Experiments in Etching was held on 6 July 2023. A total of fifteen participants, including specialists in 19th-century prints, printmakers and Van Gogh specialists, gathered in the gallery of the eponymous exhibition to engage with the prints and develop new insights.
Expert Meeting Dr Gachet & Van Gogh
Van Gogh as printmaker
The first topic to be addressed was Van Gogh’s history as a printmaker. Before trying his hand at etching in Auvers-sur-Oise in 1890, he experimented with lithography (using transfer paper) in The Hague, in 1882-1883.
His desire to experiment with the graphic medium became apparent at this early stage, through his decision to use an unconventional size and to finish the prints by hand.
Van Gogh worked with J. Smulders, a primarily commercial printer who was not used to working with artists. If Van Gogh had have met a printer who was more receptive to his artistic ideas at the time, the graphic arts may have played a larger role in his oeuvre. After all, the notion of reproducible and hence cheaper art that could reach a broader audience very much appealed to Van Gogh.
Etching press in Auvers
The focus of the expert meeting subsequently turned to Paul Gachet’s studio in Auvers. This is where Van Gogh worked with an etching press in the summer of 1890. The Maison du docteur Gachet in Auvers-sur-Oise loaned the wooden etching press to the museum for the exhibition. When Gachet installed the etching press in his house, probably in the 1870s, it was already an older, well-used model. At the time, most printers were switching to modern metal presses, which meant that Gachet – as an ‘amateur’ – could acquire a wooden model.
The story goes that Gachet also owned another press: a similar model, but 130 cm high instead of 147 cm. The smaller etching press is currently in Tokyo. It remains unclear why Gachet owned two different presses, and whether he owned them at the same time, or one after the other.
Associate Curator Sara Tas talks about Dr Gachet's wooden etching press during the expert meeting
Questions
The etchings made by Van Gogh were then extensively examined and discussed. He made a number of prints of the portrait of Dr Gachet in his garden (later entitled L’homme à la pipe). The Van Gogh Museum has nine of these prints in its collection. Questions included ‘what did he want to express here?’ and ‘what are the technical successes and failures?’
The date on the plate – in Gachet’s handwriting – remains a mystery. He appears to have written ‘15 mai 90’, but this cannot be correct, as on this date, Van Gogh was yet to arrive in Auvers. A date of 15 June 1890 is much more plausible, as previously demonstrated in literature on the subject (Van Heugten/Pabst 1995). Could Gachet have given Van Gogh an ‘old’, blank etching plate in June, upon which he had already scratched the date on 15 May, or was he mistaken about the month?
As expected, the expert meeting resulted in both fresh insights and new many new questions. Associate Curator Sara Tas will address these questions as she continues her research into the relationship between Gachet and Van Gogh.
The six etchings that Vincent van Gogh made of Dr Gachet’s portrait in the exhibition ‘Dr Gachet & Van Gogh. Experiments in Etching’. Photo: Luuk Kramer