Inside Van Gogh’s Peak Years: The Roulin Family Exhibition

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has unveiled a remarkable exhibition that reunites one of the painter’s most personal series: the portraits of Joseph Roulin, a local postman in Arles, and his family.

Between July 1888 and April 1889, Vincent van Gogh painted 26 portraits of Roulin, his wife, two sons, and baby daughter, a burst of creativity that revealed not only his artistic genius but also one of the few close friendships in his turbulent life.

Van Gogh, often isolated during his time in Arles, found companionship in Roulin and turned the family into recurring subjects in works that combined warmth, color, and humanity.

The show gathers paintings from museums worldwide and features an extraordinary surprise: the original willow chair that Roulin once sat in, discovered in the museum’s own storerooms and displayed for the first time.

Curators note that the Arles period marked a turning point in Van Gogh’s artistry, where his portraits reflected both technical mastery and deep emotional expression.