1890
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dr. Gachet is a 1890 by Vincent van Gogh, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a man in a dark coat leaning on a table, his face tired and thoughtful. His fingers press against his cheek, and the lines around his eyes look deep. This is the only etching Van Gogh ever made. He drew directly onto a copper plate, then pressed paper against it to make the print. The doctor in the picture, Paul Gachet, was Van Gogh’s friend and caretaker in his last months. Gachet even let Van Gogh use his own printing press. Look up *impasto* to see how Van Gogh built thick paint in his other works.
This portrait of Dr. Paul Gachet, made just two months before the artist’s death, is the only etching that Vincent van Gogh created. Van Gogh placed himself under the care of Gachet in Auvers-sur-Oise, a small village on the northern outskirts of Paris, at the recommendation of fellow artist Camille Pissarro. The doctor was himself an amateur printmaker and gave Van Gogh a varnished copper plate, helping him print it on his own small hand press. For his first attempt, Van Gogh depicted Gachet seated in his garden smoking a pipe.
Van Gogh’s brother Theo wrote of this print, “It’s a real painter’s etching. No refinement in the procedure, but a drawing done on metal.”
Read the full account in the museum source.
Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art.
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