Grapes, Lemons, Pears, and Apples

1887 · Oil on canvas

Can I see it?

Yes, on view now

Where is “Grapes, Lemons, Pears, and Apples” now? Art Institute of Chicago, Gallery 241, Chicago. Yes, on view now. Checked September 29, 2026.

Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Room241

Closed· opens tomorrow at 11:00 AM

On public display.

Checked: 12 days ago
In this state since: Aug 16, 2026
Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

About the painting

This is one of a group of related canvases featuring seasonal fruit that Vincent van Gogh painted in the fall of 1887. In these works, he simplified his palette, employed more vibrant colors, and used a thicker, broader paint application than he had earlier. Here he explored the use of complementary colors—yellow and purple, blue and orange, and red and green—in the service of chromatic intensity. The effect of these color contrasts is heightened by the pulsating pattern of brushstrokes that defines the tablecloth and creates a force field around the fruit. The painting was probably among the “violent still lifes”—to quote Van Gogh’s friend the painter Emile Bernard—that he included in the group exhibition of young avant-garde artists that he organized at a local restaurant in November–December 1887.

Art Institute of ChicagoCC BY 4.0

Details

What it shows

Still life Apples Blue (color)Fruit Grapes Green (color)Leaf Lemons Pears Pink (color)Purple (color)Red (color)Food

In the catalog

Paintings Dutch painting Impressionism 19th century Post-Impressionism Paris

Sources

Art Institute of Chicago
Image: Wikimedia Commons — Public domain (PD-Art)

In the life of Vincent van Gogh

The whole life

February 1886
Moves to Paris to join his brother Theo
Van Gogh left Antwerp to join his brother Theo, an art dealer, in Paris. So began a very fruitful and eventful Paris period: he painted some two hundred and thirty pictures there, more than anywhere else.
November 1887
Friendship with Paul Gauguin
Theo and Vincent befriended Paul Gauguin, who had just arrived in Paris.
February 1888
To Arles, dreaming of a “Studio of the South”
The public still neither accepted nor bought his paintings, and in February 1888 Van Gogh left for Arles in the south of France to found a “Studio of the South”, a brotherhood of like-minded artists in which he gave Gauguin the leading role. Theo backed the plan with money.
23 October 1888
Gauguin arrives in Arles
After much pleading Gauguin arrived in Arles, and in November the two painted together: Gauguin portrayed Van Gogh in “The Painter of Sunflowers”, and their first joint outing was to the Alyscamps. At Gauguin's suggestion Vincent painted from memory, producing “Memory of the Garden at Etten”.
23 December 1888
The severed ear
After an altercation on the evening of 23 December, Van Gogh, seemingly hearing voices, severed his left ear, wholly or in part, with a razor and delivered it, wrapped in paper, to a woman at a brothel. Next morning a policeman found him unconscious; in hospital he was diagnosed with “acute mania with generalised delirium”.
May 1889
Voluntarily into the Saint-Paul asylum
Van Gogh left Arles and voluntarily entered the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum, a former monastery in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, accompanied by the Protestant clergyman Frédéric Salles. Of his two cells with barred windows one became a studio, and the clinic and its garden became the main subjects of his paintings.