Hugo van der Goes, the definitive retrospective

From 31 March to 16 July 2023, the Gemäldegalerie presents “Hugo van der Goes. Between Pain and Bliss”, the most important exhibition ever devoted to Hugo van der Goes (c. 1440-1482/83)

Source: Gemäldegalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin · Image: Hugo van der Goes, “The Monforte Altarpiece” (c. 1470/75), Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

Hugo van der Goes (c. 1440-1482/83) was the most important Dutch artist of the second half of the 15th century. His works impress with their monumentality and intense colourfulness as well as with their astonishing closeness to life and emotional expressiveness. Now, 540 years after the artist’s death, the Berlin Gemäldegalerie celebrates a premiere: for the first time, almost all of the artist’s surviving paintings and drawings will be presented in one exhibition.

Although Hugo van der Goes must be mentioned in the same breath as pioneering masters such as Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, no monographic exhibition has ever been devoted to his complete works. This is probably due to both the rarity of his works and their often large format. Two of his monumental works, the “Monforte Altarpiece” (c. 1470/75) and the “Birth of Christ” (c. 1480), are in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. For this reason, the collection lends itself to a special exhibition like no other. Both Berlin panel paintings have been lavishly restored over the past twelve years and now appear with a freshness previously undreamed of. Van der Goes’ late masterpiece, the “Death of the Virgin” from the Groeningemuseum in Bruges, which has never before left Flanders, has also recently undergone extensive restoration and will be a highlight of the Berlin show.

The biography of Hugo van der Goes is as fascinating today as his paintings. The painter, who worked as an independent master in Ghent from 1467 onwards, abandoned his successful secular career in the mid-1470s for unknown reasons and entered a monastery near Brussels as a lay brother. Most of his preserved works were created there. After a few years in the monastery, however, Hugo was suddenly struck by a mysterious mental illness, which a confrere later reported: the painter believed himself damned and tried to take his own life. In the late 19th century, van der Goes was therefore regarded as the prototype of the “mad genius” with whom even Vincent van Gogh identified.

With the help of some 60 top-class exhibits, including loans from 38 international collections, the Berlin exhibition will bring the art of Hugo van der Goes to life in a way never seen before. The focus will be on twelve of the 14 paintings now attributed to van der Goes as well as the two drawings considered to be his own work. In addition, compositions by the master that were once known but lost in the original will be presented in contemporary repetitions and redrawings. Finally, the exhibition is dedicated to the painter’s immediate successor with a selection of outstanding works clearly influenced by Hugo van der Goes’ style, such as the spectacular “Hippolytus Triptych” from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the famous “Adoration of Christ” by the French painter Jean Hey from the Musée Rolin in Autun.