Elvis and Vincent

The world-famous legacies of Elvis Presley and Vincent van Gogh merge at Graceland this spring.

by

It was 1954, and the hitchhiker carried a guitar case when he approached the stranger’s car, saying he had run out of gas. The man let him in, and the two spoke about music as they drove to the gas station. Low on money, the hitchhiker asked for a loan, and the stranger obliged before the hitchhiker took his name and address, promising to repay him.

A month later, a large package came in the mail from the hitchhiker, containing a watch and a letter, who wrote that he’d like the stranger to have a painting of his. This painting of a cow in a meadow, the stranger noticed, was signed and inscribed by the hitchhiker — a young musician named Elvis Presley. Forty years later, the stranger registered the painting, still in his possession after all this time, with the U.S. Copyright Office, writing in his statement of fact: “I feel it is time to show Elvis fans that Elvis was a fine young artist as well as entertainer.”

“Part of this whole endeavor is to connect the twenty-first-century audience to a nineteenth-century artist. People might find it hard to relate to art of the past or might be intimidated by museums, so it’s really about connecting these elements and showing why the work is still popular in this case, why it’s still relevant. And music helps bridge that gap.” — Fanny Curtat, art history consultant

Despite this stranger’s belief in the authenticity of his painting, by 2005, Janet Gwendolyn Smith, fine art appraiser and historian, determined that Elvis was not the artist, though a handwriting analysis authenticated his signature and the dedication to his grandmother and mother. But after academic research and forensic examinations — including an x-ray, thread count of the canvas, and ink analysis of the inscription, as well as a study of the original signature buried beneath this newer signature — Smith attributed the painting to another icon: the world-famous post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh.

Since then, Smith has submitted the painting to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam for authentication. “It takes 50-100 years to approve,” Smith says. “I might not ever see it [authenticated] in my lifetime.”

“I’ll be honest with you, “she continues. “I don’t think Elvis knew who painted it. I think he just put his name on it because he wanted to make sure he was credited with owning it. … He had a very rough childhood. I’m relatively certain that he was trying to leave a legacy for [his family].”

Of course, we may never know why Elvis signed the painting, but we do know that this artwork, which never hung on the walls of Graceland, was not what gave the Presley name the legacy Elvis craved. For now, we can believe that the painting is, perhaps, a part of another legacy — that of Vincent van Gogh. And beginning March 25th and running through June 5th, these legacies of Elvis and van Gogh will once again be intertwined as Graceland hosts “Beyond Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience.”

In one of his letters, van Gogh urged, “Find things beautiful as much as you can, most people find too little beautiful.”

In this popular traveling exhibit, van Gogh’s work spills off the canvas as cutting-edge technology projects his paintings to a larger-than-life scale over the walls and floors of the exhibition space. “The audience literally steps foot in them and becomes a part of his vision of the world,” says Fanny Curtat, art history consultant for the exhibit.

“This technology breathes new life into it,” Curtat continues, pointing to the animation that captures the movement already present in van Gogh’s linework and use of complementary colors. “I think he would be comfortable with using tools in a way that showcases his vision, not only what he saw but really what we perceived, and in that sense, it was really about what he saw and didn’t see and what he felt.”

For van Gogh, painting was a form of communication. “We know that he was very sensitive to color,” Curtat says. “He imbues power in them, and he saw a symbolic importance to them. … We know that he thought about colors in a very meaningful way, and that’s one of the goals — to showcase this craving for beauty he put into his work. We tend to remember him for the darkness in his life and the ear-cutting incident, but there’s so much more to him than that.”

“For sure, he struggled — for sure,” she continues. “But when you read his letters, he’s very lucid. At times there’s this philosophical depth; at other times, he has this childlike wonder to the world. He’s all about bringing joy and solutions, and he’s known for all the hardship in his life that he successfully transcended into works of art and works of beauty. He was able to see the beauty in a sack of onions on a kitchen table or a pair of boots in the doorway.”

In one of his letters, van Gogh urged, “Find things beautiful as much as you can, most people find too little beautiful.” For an exhibit whose inception began in the midst of a pandemic, Curtat says, “He felt like sort of a good resonating point for what we were going through. He felt very much like the artist we needed.”

The exhibit begins with an introduction to van Gogh’s story, flipping the narrative of the mad artist and showing him as a more complex figure. After this, guests move into the gallery space, where the projections move from one painting to the next, beginning with his early, darker-toned works and transitioning to his later, much brighter and more colorful paintings. “We wanted to focus on the light and the joy,” Curtat says.

Part of this light and joy is conveyed through the soundtrack that plays throughout the exhibit. The music is from different periods and different artists, but the tracks carry a sense of levity to them, a warmth that welcomes the viewer into van Gogh’s work.“For me this is really the fantasy of going into the paintings I know and love,” Curtat says. “But part of this whole endeavor is to connect the twenty-first-century audience to a nineteenth-century artist. People might find it hard to relate to art of the past or might be intimidated by museums, so it’s really about connecting these elements and showing why the work is still popular in this case, why it’s still relevant. And music helps bridge that gap.”

In bridging this gap, Curtat explains, the exhibit promotes the timeliness and prevailing relevance of van Gogh’s work. “It speaks to the power of his work and the fact that people resonate with him,” Curtat adds.

With that in mind, it seems more than coincidental that van Gogh’s work is now at Graceland, where more than 500,000 visitors come each year to be a part of Elvis’ world. And perhaps, this exhibit will encourage you, the next time (or the first time) you visit Graceland, to examine Elvis as more than a legend, a persona, but as an artist who crafted a legacy and a message that has persevered across decades. After all, as van Gogh once wrote, “I don’t know if you’ll understand that one can speak poetry just by arranging colors well, just as one can say comforting things in music.”

“Beyond Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience” will be on view at the Graceland Exhibition Center, 3171 Elvis Presley Blvd., through June 5th. Tickets can be purchased at vangoghmemphis.com.