The confusion sorted out, the painting was purchased by the City of Glasgow in 1974 and it remains a major draw for visitors at the Kelvingrove Museum to this day. In 1928, Reid's son laid eyes on the painting in a catalogue and contacted Van Gogh's family to inform them that the portrait was actually of his father. Incredibly, it would take more than 40 years for the truth to emerge.
I have often hesitated, until I got close, as to which of them I was meeting". An artist friend of the pair once wrote: "they might have been twins. With the two sharing a likeness, many believed that the painting of Reid was actually of the Dutchman. In 1887, Reid sat down with Van Gogh to pose for a portrait that would one day hang on the wall of the Kelvingrove Museum. It was here, under the tutelage of a Theo Van Gogh, Vincent Van Gogh’s brother, that he got to know Vincent, before moving in with the struggling artist on the suggestion of Theo to help make ends meet.Īnd although he spent only six months under the same roof as Van Gogh, Reid and Van Gogh became close friends, even entering into a suicide pact with one another prior to Reid's return to Scotland in 1889. In 1877, he opened his first art gallery, showing the work of the Glasgow Boys and the Barbizon and Hague Schools, before deciding to move to France to further his knowledge in French art dealing practices by working at Paris art house Boussod & Valadon. His family owned a successful business (Kay & Reid) specialising in furnishing ships and making figure heads, with a shop on Wellington Street and a workshop on Dumbarton Road.ĥ4 Rue Lepic in Paris, where Alexander Reid shared a flat with Vincent Van Gogh (Image: getty)Īlexander worked as a carver at the workshop on leaving school, and was forced to leave the firm and set up his own business on Finnieston Street when a fire destroyed the business and ruined the family financially. In fact, many years later, a painting Van Gogh created of Reid would be deemed a self portrait - until Reid’s own son spotted that it was in fact of his dad.Īlexander Reid was born in 1854, the oldest of six children, and studied at Glasgow High School while living with his family at Blythswood Terrace in the city. The two men, with their red hair, white complexion and beards, resemble one another and dressed so similarly that they could be mistaken for twins. It’s October 1886, and at 54 Rue Lepic in the Montmartre area of Paris – around 400 metres from the Moulin Rouge – a young Glaswegian art dealer named Alexander Reid is at home with his flatmate, a struggling Dutch impressionist painter called Vincent Van Gogh. In the third episode of Inside Museums, which aired on BBC Four on Tuesday, April 6, and is now available on iPlayer, Lachlan Goudie visits the Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum to tell the story of how the likeness of the celebrated Dutch master came to be confused with a woodworker from Glasgow.
Glasgow possesses a special piece of artwork that, at first glance, would appear to be one of many self-portraits that the legendary Vincent van Gogh painted during his lifetime.