Question: During what years were the group of paintings which included "Almond Blossom" painted by Vincent van Gogh and made to celebrate the key player in the growth of his fame?
Context: Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles is a non-profit foundation located in Arles France dedicated to the work and legacy of Vincent Van Gogh.  Its goal is to generate and promote cultural and artistic activities with reference to the oeuvre of Vincent van Gogh as related to the time he spent in Arles, and the intention that van Gogh expressed in establishing an international center of artistic creation and exchange in Arles.  The artistic director is editor-in-chief of Parkett, Bice Curiger. The early works of Vincent van Gogh is a group of paintings and drawings that Vincent van Gogh made when he was 27 and 28, in 1881 and 1882, his first two years of serious artistic exploration.  Over the course of the two-year period Van Gogh lived in several places.  He left Brussels, where he had studied for about a year in 1881, to return to his parent's home in Etten (North Brabant), where he made studies of some of the residents of the town.  In January 1882 Van Gogh went to The Hague where he studied with his cousin-in-law Anton Mauve and set up a studio, funded by Mauve.  During the ten years of Van Gogh's artistic career from 1881 to 1890 Vincent's brother Theo would be a continuing source of inspiration and financial support; his first financial support began in 1880 funding Vincent while he lived in Brussels. The Passion of Vincent van Gogh is an opera in three acts and eighteen scenes by composer Christopher Yavelow.  The opera was commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts and composed at the Camargo Foundation in 1983 during a Camargo Fellowship in Cassis, France.  The English libretto by the composer is taken from the letters of Vincent van Gogh (with permission from the Vincent van Gogh Foundation), Paul Gauguin's journal, and additional official documents relating to Vincent van Gogh.  Each line is footnoted in the score and libretto.  A German translation by Monique Fasel appears in both the score and libretto.  Research for the opera was supported by the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) and by the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council.  An abridged version of the opera premiered at the University of Texas at Dallas on April 14, 1984. Almond Blossoms is from a group of several paintings made in 1888 and 1890 by Vincent van Gogh in Arles and Saint-Rémy, southern France of blossoming almond trees.  Flowering trees were special to van Gogh.  They represented awakening and hope.  He enjoyed them aesthetically and found joy in painting flowering trees.  The works reflect the influence of Impressionism, Divisionism, and Japanese woodcuts. "Almond Blossom" was made to celebrate the birth of his nephew and namesake, son of his brother Theo and sister-in-law Jo. Portrait of Père Tanguy, painted by Vincent van Gogh in 1887, is one of his three paintings of Julien Tanguy.  The three works demonstrate a progression in van Gogh's artistic style after his arrival in Paris.  The first is somber, and formed from a simple composition.  The second introduces van Gogh's Japanese prints.  The last and most advanced in style, skill and color integrates Japanese, Impressionist, and other influences on the Parisian artist community.  This painting conveys a sense of serenity that van Gogh seeks for himself.  This last painting of Tanguy is in the Musée Rodin, Paris. Van Gogh's family in his art is a group of works that Vincent van Gogh made for or about Van Gogh family members.  In 1881 Vincent drew a portrait of his grandfather, also named Vincent van Gogh, and his sister Wil.  While living in Nuenen, Vincent memorialized his father in "Still Life with Bible" following his death in 1885.  There he also made many paintings and drawings in 1884 and 1885 of his parent's vicarage, its garden and the church.  At the height of his career in Arles he made "Portrait of the Artist's Mother", "Memory of the Garden at Etten" of his mother and sister and "Novel Reader", which is thought to be of his sister, Wil. Copies by Vincent van Gogh form an important group of paintings executed by Vincent van Gogh between 1887 and early 1890.  While at Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, where Van Gogh admitted himself, he strived to have subjects during the cold winter months.  Seeking to be reinvigorated artistically, Van Gogh did more than 30 copies of works by some of his favorite artists.  About twenty-one of the works were copies after, or inspired by, Jean-François Millet.  Rather than replicate, Van Gogh sought to translate the subjects and composition through his perspective, color, and technique.  Spiritual meaning and emotional comfort were expressed through symbolism and color.  His brother Theo van Gogh would call the pieces in the series some of his best work. Johanna Gezina "Jo" van Gogh-Bonger (4 October 1862 – 2 September 1925) was the wife of Theo van Gogh, art dealer, and the sister-in-law of the painter Vincent van Gogh and key player in the growth of Vincent's fame. Still life paintings by Vincent van Gogh (Paris) is the subject of many drawings, sketches and paintings by Vincent van Gogh in 1886 and 1887 after he moved to Montmartre in Paris from the Netherlands.  While in Paris, Van Gogh transformed the subjects, color and techniques that he used in creating still life paintings. Flowering Orchards is a series of paintings which Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh executed in Arles, in southern France in the spring of 1888.  Van Gogh arrived in Arles in February 1888 in a snowstorm; within two weeks the weather changed and the fruit trees were in blossom.  Appreciating the symbolism of rebirth, Van Gogh worked with optimism and zeal on about fourteen paintings of flowering trees in the early spring.  He also made paintings of flowering trees in Saint-Rémy the following year, in 1889.
Answer: 1888 and 1890