Royal Academy to exhibit 800 Van Gogh letters

The first major exhibition on Vincent van Gogh in London for more than 40 years will include rarely seen correspondence in which he gives glimpses of his thought processes.

Experts in Amsterdam have spent 15 years examining more than 800 letters which will be published in a new edition this autumn - the first collection of them in more than 50 years.

Fragile examples of the letters will then be included in the Royal Academy's show in January alongside the paintings he discusses.

Ann Dumas, the curator, said van Gogh speaks of his use of colour and the influence of Japanese prints on his work as well as writing generally of his reading in literature and philosophy.

The impression is quite at odds with that of the mad painter who famously cut off his own ear.

"The general public's perception was that he was a spontaneous, unreflective genius but what comes out in the letters was that he was incredibly well-read," she said. "He spoke four languages and he loved what was for him contemporary 19th-century French realistic authors - Goncourt, Zola, Maupassant, Balzac - as well as Dickens and George Eliot."

Loans to the show will include a dozen important paintings from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam as well as works from the Metropolitan Museum in New York and private collections.

The correspondence includes letters to artists such as Paul Gauguin and Émile Bernard, and some to his sister, Wilhelmina.

But most of the letters are to his brother, Theo, an art dealer who supported Vincent throughout his difficult career and to whom he sent his final letter the day before he died, aged 37, in 1890.

Computer terminals in the Royal Academy will enable visitors to search through the collection during the show.

Ms Dumas said: "The appeal of van Gogh as a painter is he has a great gift for immediate emotional communication. The same is true of his letters."

The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and his Letters will run from 23 January to 18 April 2010.