Vincent van Gogh

Self-Portrait ; 1887

March 30, 1853 - July 29, 1890

Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter whose work had a far-reaching influence on Twentieth Century art. In just over a decade, he produced over 2,100 artworks, including around eight hundred sixty oil paintings. They include portraits, self-portraits, landscapes, still lifes, olive trees, cypresses, wheat fields, and sunflowers. He was largely unnoticed by critics until his suicide at thirty-seven, following years of anxiety, poverty, and mental illness.

Born into an upper-middle-class family, Van Gogh was thoughtful, intellectual, and drew as a child. As a young adult he was both deeply religious and keenly aware of modernist trends in art, music, and literature. He spent several years in his twenties working for a firm of art dealers in The Hague, London, and Paris, often drifting into ill health and solitude. His first major work was 1885’s The Potato Eaters, which contains a few signs of the vivid colorization distinguishing his later work. In 1886 he moved to Paris and discovered the French Impressionists; from then on his paintings grew brighter in color as he developed a style becoming fully realized during his stay in Arles in 1888.

Van Gogh's vivid colors, emotive subject matter, and the romanticism of his short life have led to his position in the public imagination as the quintessential misunderstood genius. His widespread critical, commercial, and popular success began after his adoption of the early-Twentieth Century German Expressionists and Fauves. Despite a popular tendency to romanticize his ill health, art historians see an artist deeply frustrated by the inactivity and incoherence caused by frequent mental sickness. His posthumous reputation grew steadily during the Twentieth Century; today he is remembered and revered as a brilliant but tragic painter.

Starry Night ; 1889

Vase With Twelve Sunflowers ; 1889

Wheatfield With Crows ; 1890