Dear Theo: The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh

press release: Fermat's Last Theater Co. presents Dear Theo: The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh at Arts + Literature Laboratory on Thursday, April 13 at 7:30pm. Free Admission. 

No artist is held in higher esteem than Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh. His paintings appear not only on museum walls, but on tee shirts, coffee mugs and posters around the world. But to know the paintings and drawings is to know only one aspect of his genius. He wrote an estimated 2000 letters in his short life, more than 600 to his brother Theo, an art dealer in Paris, who often supported Vincent financially, and carefully preserved their correspondence. Many of them contained sketches as well. The letters document Vincent’s turbulent emotional life, his wide and deep reading, his artistic development. And his belief, despite a lack of commercial success, that he was in fact a great artist.

“You know the fireflies in Brazil that are so luminous that in the evening ladies stick them into their hair with pins. It’s very fine, fame, but see, it is to the artist what the hairpin is to those insects.” --Vincent Van Gogh, Arles, 1888

Melvin Hinton will read the letters, accompanied by violin and many, many images.