Vincent

Willem van

Gogh1853-1890

Van Gogh did not begin painting until his late twenties, and most of his best-known works were produced during his final two years.

He produced more than 2,000 artworks, consisting of around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches.

Although he was little known during his lifetime, his work was a strong influence on the Modernist art that followed.

Today many of his pieces—including his numerous self portraits, landscapes, portraits and sunflowers—are among the world's most recognizable and expensive works of art.

"I wanted to convey the idea that the people eating potatoes by the light of an oil lamp used the same hands with which they take food from the plate to work the land, that they have toiled with their hands—that they have earned their food by honest means."

"I think that the pictures of the peasants eating potatoes that I painted in Nuenen is the best of all my work.“ Writing to his sister two years later in Paris, (Letter W1), van Gogh still considered "The Potato Eaters" his most successful painting.

The Potato Eaters (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; 1885).

Van Gogh said he wanted to depict peasants as they really were.

He deliberately chose coarse and ugly models, thinking that they would be natural and unspoiled in his finished work:

His palette at the time consisted mainly of sombre earth tones and showed no sign of the vivid coloration that distinguished his later work.

In March 1886, he moved to Paris and discovered the French Impressionists.

Later he moved to the south of France and was taken by the strong sunlight he found there. His work grew brighter in color and he developed the unique and highly recognizable style which became fully realized during his stay in Arles in 1888.

The house where Van Gogh stayed in Cuesmes in 1880; while living here he

decided to become an artist.

The extent to which his mental illness affected his painting has been a subject of speculation since his death.

Despite a widespread tendency to romanticize his ill health, modern critics see an artist deeply frustrated by the inactivity and incoherence brought about by his bouts of sickness.

According to art critic Robert Hughes, Van Gogh's late works show an artist at the height of his ability, completely in control and "longing for concision and grace".

Paul Gauguin's Armchair (1888), Van Gogh Museum

The Night Café (1888), Yale University

Bedroom in Arles (1888), Van Gogh Museum

The Starry Night

The painting depicts the view outside his sanatorium room window at night, although it was painted from memory during the day.

Since 1941 it has been in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Self-portrait (1889), private collection. Mirror-image self portrait with bandaged ear

Vestibule of the Asylum (September 1889), Saint-Remy, Van Gogh Museum, brush and oils, black chalk, on pink laid paper

Portrait of Dr. Gachet is one of the most revered paintings by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh of Dr. Paul Gachet, who took care of him in his last months. In 1990, it fetched a record price of $82.5 million ($75 million, plus a 10 percent buyer's commission).

There are two authentic versions of the portrait, both painted in June 1890 in Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris.

Both show Doctor Gachet sitting at a table and leaning his head onto his right arm, but they are easily differentiated.

Irises

Inspired by the nature surrounding him, Van Gogh began his work on Irises within the first week of his stay at the asylum.

Vincent van Gogh's Flower Beds in Holland