First Steps, after Millet

In fall and winter 1889-90, while a voluntary patient at the asylum in Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh painted twenty-one copies after Millet, an artist he greatly admired. He considered his copies "translations" akin to a musician's interpretation of a composer's work. He let the black-and-white images-whether prints, reproductions, or, as here, a photograph that his brother, Theo, had sent-pose "as a subject," then he would "improvise color on it." For this work of January 1890, Van Gogh squared-up a photograph of Millet's First Steps and transferred it to the canvas.

Credit: Gift of George N. and Helen M. Richard, 1964