Postman Joseph Roulin
Postman Joseph Roulin, Vincent van Gogh, 1888 Museum of Fine Arts Boston
In the late 1880s, Vincent van Gogh spent two years in southern France. Though the period was famously tumultuous for the Dutch artist, it was also remarkably productive: He befriended Joseph Roulin, a 47-year-old postal worker at the Arles train station, and their relationship became pivotal.
Roulin, depicted in his blue uniform and “postes” hat, is now one of van Gogh’s most famous subjects. But the artist didn’t stop with the postman: He painted the entire family, making 26 portraits of Roulin and his wife, Augustine, and their three children. It’s “one of the most impressive portrait series in art history,” per a statement from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
“I’ve done the portraits of an entire family, the family of the postman,” van Gogh wrote to his brother in late 1888. “The man, his wife, the baby, the young boy and the 16-year-old son, all characters and very French … You can sense how in my element that makes me feel.”
Lullaby
Lullaby: Madame Augustine Roulin Rocking a Cradle (La Berceuse), Vincent van Gogh, 1889 Museum of Fine Arts Boston
For many years, the Roulin portraits have been scattered throughout museums and private collections around the world. But now, many of them are coming together in a new exhibition. “Van Gogh: The Roulin Family Portraits” opens at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston this month. In the fall, the works will travel to the Van Gogh Museum, where they will be on view in “Van Gogh and the Roulins. Together Again at Last.”
Van Gogh arrived in Arles in his mid-30s with an “openness to possibility,” as Katie Hanson, co-curator of the Boston exhibition, tells BBC News’ Deborah Nicholls-Lee. After working in the Netherlands and Paris, van Gogh came to southern France aiming to develop his style.
Joseph Roulin
Joseph Roulin in Vincent van Gogh's 1888 portrait (left) and a 1902 photograph (right) Museum of Fine Arts Boston / Van Gogh Museum
Van Gogh moved into the now-famous Yellow House, the home and studio in which he would paint the Roulins, Sunflowers and The Bedroom. According to the statement, he didn’t connect with many locals in Arles, but he found a “kindred spirit” in Roulin. The men drank together at a café owned by Marie Ginoux, who said they were “like brothers,” per the Art Newspaper’s Martin Bailey, a van Gogh expert. When the artist mutilated his left ear in December 1888, Roulin helped him recover.
“Following that incident of derangement, it was Roulin who took the artist home, then saw him into the hospital, looked after his affairs during recuperation, and shepherded his efforts to return to normal life,” as curator Kirk Varnedoe wrote for the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 2001. “Never were the postman and the painter closer, nor van Gogh more in debt to their friendship, than during these weeks.”
Between July 1888 and April 1889, van Gogh completed six paintings and three sketches of Roulin. He also made eight paintings of Augustine and three of each child: 17-year-old Armand, 11-year-old Camille and the baby Marcelle. According to the Art Newspaper, more than half of these portraits were done from life.
Portrait of Marcelle
Portrait of Marcelle Roulin, Vincent van Gogh, 1888 Van Gogh Museum
The exhibition illuminates the lives of the Roulins through supplemental photographs, letters and histories. Armand grew up to be a police officer who worked in Tunisia, while Camille joined the army and served in Indochina.
Marcelle, the daughter, was born around the time van Gogh met the family. As the artist wrote to his sister in July 1888, “I’m now working on the portrait of a postman with his dark blue uniform with yellow. … The man is a fervent republican and socialist, reasons very well and knows many things. His wife gave birth today and so he’s in really fine feather and glowing with satisfaction.”
Marcelle
Marcelle Roulin, 67, in 1955 Van Gogh Museum
Van Gogh, a “perpetual loner, tormented by his sterile alienation from love,” likely found Roulin to be “a figure of virile energy,” per MoMA. The family seemingly energized, inspired and comforted the troubled artist, whose work didn’t achieve worldwide acclaim until after his death.
“They were more than just models to him,” says Nienke Bakker, senior curator at the Van Gogh Museum, in the statement. “With them he found the warmth of a family that he was never able to start.”
“Van Gogh: The Roulin Family Portraits” will be on view at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston from March 30 to September 7, 2025. It will then travel to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, where “Van Gogh and the Roulins. Together Again at Last” will be on display from October 3, 2025, to January 11, 2026.
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Sonja Anderson | READ MORE
Sonja Anderson is a writer and reporter based in Chicago.
Filed Under: Art, Art History, Arts, Boston, Exhibitions, Exhibits, France, France Travel, Netherlands, Painters, Painting, Portraiture, Vincent Van Gogh, Visual Arts