A British Visionary Steps Into Van Gogh’s Secret Asylum Spaces in Southern France
- Stephen Wick
- Dec 28, 2025
- 4 min read
SAINT-RÉMY-DE-PROVENCE, France — A seldom-seen section of one of Europe’s most important artistic sites is receiving renewed interest following British artist Harry MC's documentation of the interior areas at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, the former psychiatric hospital where Vincent van Gogh resided and created art in 1889–90.
The first-floor areas of the Provençal asylum—previously inaccessible to the public for many years and just recently opened—feature Dr. Théophile Peyron’s office, a 19th-century pharmacy, tiled hallways, nuns’ sleeping quarters, and the hydrotherapy baths mentioned in Van Gogh’s correspondence. On a recent research expedition, Harry MC captured detailed photographs of these spaces, becoming one of the first contemporary artists to thoroughly explore the rooms since their reopening.
Interior of the historic hydrotherapy room at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole in Saint-Rémy, photographed by British stripe painter Harry MC. The room contains original 19th-century galvanized steel bath tubs, flaking white paint and worn grey flagstones-rarely seen spaces connected to Van Gogh's 1889-90 treatment. Part of Harry MC's Provence fieldwork for new contemporary stripe paintings.
Rather than approaching the site as a historian, the Bath-based painter used the interiors as source material for a new body of work. Known for his vertical stripe paintings, Harry MC translated the architecture, light, and atmosphere of the asylum into a series of small, intimate canvases inspired by the rhythms of tiled floors, shuttered windows, and shifting Provençal light.
“The moment I stepped onto the first floor, everything felt naturally geometric,” the artist said. “Corridors receding into doorways, flagstones underfoot, warm and cool stripes of light across the walls—it all read as abstraction.”
Among the most striking spaces is the hydrotherapy room, which still contains original galvanized steel bathtubs set above worn stone floors. In an 1889 letter to his brother Theo, Van Gogh wrote of alternating hot and cold baths as part of his treatment. Nearby rooms retain period details, including pharmaceutical bottles and ochre-toned furnishings, offering a rare glimpse into the daily routines of late 19th-century psychiatric care.
The resulting paintings differ from Harry MC’s larger works—some of which reach 10 feet in height—favoring instead smaller formats that mirror the intimacy of the rooms themselves. The color palette draws from the surrounding olive groves and interior walls, with stripes that sharpen and blur across the canvas, reflecting movement between landscape and architecture.
One of Harry MC's new Saint-Rémy stripe paintings (oil on canvas, 24×24 inches, 2025). The vertical composition uses ochre yellows, deep greens, black and white drawn from the Provence landscape and Van Gogh asylum interiors. On one side the stripes are sharply separated; on the other they soften and blur-reflecting light moving through olive groves, hospital corridors and shuttered windows. © Harry MC.
Saint-Paul-de-Mausole remains a popular cultural stop in Provence, particularly for travelers tracing Van Gogh’s final years in the region. The opening of these upper-level rooms adds a new layer to the visitor experience, revealing spaces long hidden from view and offering fresh perspective on one of art history’s most studied figures.
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