New York's Metropolitan Museum planning major Van Gogh show in 2023

Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh's 'Wheat Field With Cypresses' (oil on canvas, 1889). Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art

New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art says it is planning a major exhibition of works by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) next year.

Taking place 170 years after the Dutch artist's birth, the show will focus on the cypresses in his work, said Max Hollein, the director of the museum in Manhattan's Central Park. These cypresses are "possibly the most famous trees in the history of art," Hollein said.

Among other things, the show planned for May 2023 will bring together two of the painter's most famous cypress paintings for the first time since they were completed: Starry Night from New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Wheat Field With Cypresses, which hangs at the Met and is not allowed to leave the museum due to donor stipulations.

Overall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is in good shape, said Met chief Daniel Weiss. Visitor numbers are now about 60 to 75% of pre-pandemic numbers, he said.

The Friday after the Thanksgiving holiday in November was the busiest day since the pandemic, with about 21,000 visitors, the museum said. During the pandemic, the Metropolitan Museum of Art was closed for about half a year. - dpa