The year 1888 in art involved some significant events. Events January 26 – Paul Gauguin leaves Paris to rejoin the Pont-Aven School of artists in Brittany, where he will remain until October and meet with Émile Bernard February – Fifth annual exhibition of Les XX, at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels. Artists invited to show in addition to members of the group include Henri-Edmond Cross, Albert Dubois-Pillet, Odilon Redon, Paul Signac, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and James McNeill Whistler February 21 – Vincent van Gogh moves to Arles where he will be very productive as a painter March – Van Gogh begins his Langlois Bridge at Arles series March 22 – Fourth exhibition by the Société des Artistes Indépendants opens in Paris; it includes three paintings by van Gogh June – Van Gogh visits Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer July 14 The Monument à Léon Gambetta, by Jean-Paul Aubé, is inaugurated at the Louvre Critic Emile Hennequin drowns at Samois-sur-Seine before his protégé Odilon Redon August – Van Gogh begins his Décoration for the Yellow House at Arles including the Arles Sunflowers series of paintings August 11 – James McNeill Whistler marries fellow-artist Beatrice ("Trixie") Godwin (née Beatrix Birnie Philip), widow of architect E. W. Godwin, and they spend a working honeymoon in France October 3 – Leeds City Art Gallery in England opens October 23 – Paul Gauguin joins van Gogh in Arles, bringing Émile Bernard's painting Le Pardon de Pont-Aven December 23 – Having quarrelled with Gauguin, van Gogh cuts off the lower part of his own left ear, taking it to a brothel, and is removed to the local hospital Paul Ranson, Paul Sérusier and Maurice Denis become fellow students at the Académie Julian and form Les Nabis The weekly illustrated newspaper The Graphic commissions and exhibits in London 21 paintings of Shakespeare's heroines William De Morgan moves his London art pottery from Merton Abbey to Fulham Publication in English of Irish-born writer George Moore's autobiographical novel Confessions of a Young Man (London) describing bohemian life in 1870s Paris among the Impressionist painters Exhibitions International Exhibition of Science, Art and Industry, in Glasgow, Scotland Works Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema – The Roses of Heliogabalus Reinhold Begas – Centaur and Nymph (bronze) Émile Bernard Le Pardon de Pont-Aven ("Breton Women in the Meadow") Brothel Scene, for Vincent (watercolor) Self-portrait with portrait of Paul Gauguin The Yellow Tree Joseph Boehm