Exhibition: The EY Exhibition. Van Gogh and Britain

London seems to have been the springboard for Vincent van Gogh’s creative genius. He trained as an art dealer at Goupil & Cie in The Hague, coming to the company’s Covent Garden office in 1873, aged 20. He lodged in South London, initially in Brixton, and for a short time stayed at 395 Kennington Road, just a few minutes from my old practice in Lambeth Walk. He soaked up London life and loved to read Zola, Balzac, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and, above all, Charles Dickens. This intriguing exhibition opens movingly with a version of L’Arlésienne (image right), in which …