Vincent van Gogh
Vincent and Theo van Gogh lived here from June 1886 until Vincent left for Arles in February 1888. He painted the view from the window repeatedly; a plaque marks the building.
54 rue Lepic
Still standing
Outside only
Someone else
The Montmartre flat Vincent van Gogh shared with his brother Theo from June 1886 until he left for Arles in February 1888 — the address where his palette turned from Dutch brown to the colour everyone now knows him for.
- 54 rue Lepic, 75018 Paris
- Vincent and Theo van Gogh lived here from June 1886 to February 1888
The place, briefly
Vincent van Gogh arrived in Paris from Antwerp in March 1886, unannounced, and moved in with his brother Theo. Theo's flat on the rue Victor-Massé was too small to paint in, so by June the brothers had taken a larger apartment high on the rue Lepic, on the slope of Montmartre. Sources differ between the third and fourth floor, which is the usual confusion between French and English floor-counting; either way it was near the top, and the height was the point.
Theo wrote about the view: across the whole city, out to the hills beyond, with a great quantity of sky above it. Vincent painted it repeatedly, and the rooftop views from this window are among the first pictures in which his Paris palette appears.
What happened at this address is the most important two years in his development. He came in with the dark earth colours of the Dutch pictures — the Potato Eaters had been painted the year before — and he left in February 1888 for Arles with the high-keyed, broken, saturated colour of everything he is now famous for. Between the two lies Paris: the Impressionists in Theo's gallery, the Japanese prints, the pointillists, and a great many self-portraits made because he could not afford models.
He also nearly wrecked the household. Theo, who was keeping him, wrote to their sister about how difficult Vincent was to live with. The relief when Vincent left for the south was mutual, and the correspondence that followed is one of the great bodies of letters in art.
A stone plaque marks the building. The flat is private.
Key facts
- Vincent and Theo van Gogh
- June 1886 to February 1888
- Near the top — sources give third or fourth, a French/English counting difference
- The two years in which his palette turned to colour
- Arles, in February 1888
- Private building — plaque and façade only
Timeline
Vincent arrives in Paris in March; the brothers move to the rue Lepic in June.
He paints the view from the window, the Montmartre windmills, and a long series of self-portraits.
He leaves for Arles in February.
On the map
Questions before you go
Where did Van Gogh live in Paris?
At 54 rue Lepic in Montmartre, with his brother Theo, from June 1886 until February 1888. Before that they were briefly at Theo's smaller flat on the rue Victor-Massé.
What changed in Van Gogh's work in Paris?
Everything about his colour. He arrived painting in dark Dutch earth tones and left two years later with the bright, broken, saturated palette of the Arles and Saint-Rémy pictures.
Can you visit the apartment?
No. The building stands and carries a commemorative plaque, but the flat is private.
People who knew this place
Within walking distance
Studio 28
A small Montmartre cinema, opened in 1928 and still running. It gave Un Chien andalou an eight-month run from October 1929, and in December 1930 its screening of Buñuel and Dalí's L'Âge d'or ended with far-right groups attacking the auditorium and slashing the paintings hanging in the foyer.
Visit the placeMoulin de la Galette
The last working windmills on the butte, turned into an open-air dance hall — painted by Renoir in 1876 and by Van Gogh repeatedly in 1886, a few minutes up the hill from his flat.
Visit the place
98 Rue Lepic
The Montmartre flat Louis-Ferdinand Céline kept for twelve years, and the desk behind both of his novels — Journey to the End of the Night and Death on the Installment Plan were written at this address.
Visit the place
4 Rue Girardon
Louis-Ferdinand Céline's Montmartre apartment during the Occupation — where Gen Paul came up from his studio a few doors away, and where the manuscripts later famous as 'the lost trove' were left behind in June 1944.
Visit the placeThe Friday Letter
Paris, one address at a time.
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.