Van Gogh's masterpiece "Tarascon Stagecoach," painted in October 1888, stands out as the crown jewel among 63 artworks being donated by the Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation to three prestigious American museums. This exceptional painting will make its debut at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) during a major exhibition running from February 22 through July 5, 2026, before traveling to the Brooklyn Museum of Art in autumn 2026 and concluding at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 2027.
The vibrant painting, created during Van Gogh's time in Arles, captures a horse-drawn coach stationed in the courtyard of the Auberge de la Poste, located on the boulevard that encircles the city's ancient ramparts. This historic inn served as the regular departure point for coaches heading to Tarascon, a town situated 15 kilometers to the north. Van Gogh had personally traveled to Tarascon at least once, just a few months before creating this artwork, likely aboard the same type of vehicle he so vividly depicted.
On October 13, 1888, Vincent included a detailed sketch of the painting in a letter to his beloved brother Theo, providing a colorful description of his work. He wrote: "Simple foreground of grey sand. Background very simple too, pink and yellow walls with windows with green louvred shutters, corner of blue sky. The two carriages very colourful: green, red, wheels yellow, black, blue, orange." Remarkably, the pink pigment of the wall has now faded to almost white over the decades.
The artist revealed his exhaustion to his brother, confiding: "I'm knocked out from painting this Tarascon diligence [coach], and I can see that I haven't a head fit for drawing. I'm off to have supper." During that same month, Van Gogh was immersed in reading one of his favorite French authors, Alphonse Daudet's satirical novel "Tartarin de Tarascon" (1872), which mocked the inhabitants of Tarascon and included a memorable chapter featuring an old stagecoach lamenting its difficult existence.
Despite his fatigue, Van Gogh was satisfied with the completed painting and promised Theo a year later that he would create a copy, though he never fulfilled this intention. After Vincent's death, Theo entrusted the original work to Père Julien Tanguy, the avant-garde Parisian art dealer known for supporting emerging artists.
In the early 1890s, Tanguy or his widow sold the painting to Medardo Rosso, a progressive Italian sculptor living in Paris. Rosso initially displayed the work in his studio, but faced such harsh criticism from his colleagues that he eventually relegated the masterpiece to his attic. In 1895, as Rosso's friend, Uruguayan artist Milo Beretta, prepared to leave Paris for Montevideo, he received "Tarascon Stagecoach" as a gift, making it the first Van Gogh painting to reach the Americas. Remarkably, it would be another 17 years before Van Gogh works would arrive in the United States.
Following Beretta's death in 1935, the painting passed to his six daughters, who stored it securely in a bank vault for over a decade. In 1946, they sold the Van Gogh to Paula de Koenigsberg, an Argentine art dealer. From there, the work was acquired by Henry Pearlman, whose foundation now plans to donate it to LACMA.
Pearlman, a self-made New York entrepreneur who built his fortune through refrigeration services, became a major collector of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and Expressionist art after World War II. He purchased "Tarascon Stagecoach" in 1950 and later recounted the fascinating details of the acquisition. According to Pearlman, he met with the dealer and within 90 minutes had struck a complex deal involving not only a cash payment but also "four genre paintings that I was glad to dispose of, two Renoirs that were not too important to me, plus a Soutine that had been seen hanging in his office."
When Henry Pearlman died in 1974, his impressive art collection passed to the Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation. For nearly five decades, the 63 works were loaned as a complete collection to the Princeton University Art Museum. The collection occasionally toured internationally, visiting prestigious venues in Oxford, Aix-en-Provence, Atlanta, and Vancouver during 2014-16.
The foundation has now made the significant decision to permanently donate the entire collection to three distinguished American museums. LACMA will receive six works including the prized Van Gogh, while the Brooklyn Museum of Art will acquire 29 pieces, and the Museum of Modern Art will receive 28 works. The carefully planned distribution will begin with all 63 works being presented together for several months at each venue, after which they will typically be incorporated into each museum's permanent collection, ensuring public access for generations to come.
