Free to read, funded by reproductions, compiled by one person
This catalogue has no paywall, no account, no advertising and no tracking script. Every entry is open to anyone who arrives at it.
A single-artist catalogue is easier than a subject catalogue in one way and harder in another, and it is worth being specific about which.
There is no effort spent deciding what a picture shows. It all goes into where a work sits in ten years, which means reconciling the museum's date, the catalogue raisonné number and the letters, and recording which of the three a date actually rests on.
The sunflowers, the bedroom, the postman, the olive groves: many motifs exist in several autograph versions that differ in size, palette and date and are held in different countries. Keeping those apart, rather than collapsing them into one famous picture, is careful and repetitive work.
Attributions change and loans run for years. Following the published literature so that an entry reflects a work's current status, rather than the status it had when the record was first copied, is continuous rather than one-off.
Every entry links to a hand-painted reproduction of the painting. Because the entire corpus is in the public domain, that is possible for every work here without qualification, and it is this site's only income. There is no subscription and no donation form.
A message that names an entry, gives the correct date and cites where it comes from is the most valuable thing this catalogue receives. Corrections are applied and dated.
There is nothing to join and nothing to cancel. If this catalogue helped you place a canvas in the right year, that is the whole purpose of it.
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