The Detroit Institute of Arts has placed a reproduction of Vincent van Gogh’s “Portrait of Postman Roulin,” which is in the DIA collection, outside of the Lincoln Park Historical Museum, which, appropriately enough, is the city’s former post office. For more information on the program, go to dia.org/insideout.
By SUE SUCHYTA
Sunday Times Newspapers
LINCOLN PARK – The Detroit Institute of Arts Inside/Out project has brought a van Gogh reproduction of his famous postmaster portrait to the lawn of the Historical Society, the city’s former post office.
Historical Museum Curator Jeff Day said the reproduction of Vincent van Gogh’s “Portrait of Postman Roulin,” the original of which is part of the DIA’s collection, was installed May 9, with help from the Lincoln Park Downtown Development Authority.
Day noted that other art reproductions will be posted throughout the city’s business district this summer.
Van Gogh’s post-impressionist work often focused on ordinary people, and in a letter he described the postman in the portrait to be “like Socrates, hardly any nose at all, a high forehead, bald crown, little gray eyes, bright red chubby cheeks, a big pepper-and-salt beard and large eyes.”
For more information about the DIA’s Inside/Out project, go to dia.org/insideout.