Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on 30 March 1853 in Groot-Zundert in North Brabant, the son of Theodorus van Gogh, a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, and Anna Cornelia Carbentus. Exactly a year earlier a stillborn brother with the same name had been born. Vincent grew up with, among others, his brother Theo, who later became his main support.

From 1869 to 1876 he worked for the art dealers Goupil & Cie in The Hague, London and Paris, then as a teacher in England and as a bookshop assistant in Dordrecht. His preparation for theological studies in Amsterdam came to nothing. In 1879 he became a temporary lay preacher in the Borinage, where his appointment was not renewed; in 1880 he decided to become an artist.

From 1880 Van Gogh taught himself to draw and paint, with money from Theo and advice from, among others, Anton Mauve in The Hague. In Nuenen he made many studies of peasants and weavers; The Potato Eaters (1885) was his first large composition with several figures. His palette was then dark, which Theo criticised.

In Paris (1886–1888) he studied Impressionism, Pointillism and Japanese woodblock prints and met, among others, Toulouse-Lautrec, Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin. His use of colour became brighter. In Arles, where he arrived in February 1888, he painted The Yellow House, Sunflowers and The Night Café, among other works, and hoped to found a community of artists.

On 23 December 1888, after a conflict with Gauguin, who left soon afterwards, he cut off all or part of his left ear and was admitted to the hospital in Arles. The precise course of events has not been established. In 1889–1890 he kept working, at Saint-Rémy on The Starry Night and irises among other works, and later at Auvers on portraits and wheat fields.

Van Gogh worked at a time when Impressionism and Post-Impressionism dominated the Paris art world. Artists experimented with colour theory and drew inspiration from Japanese prints. The art trade shifted from Salon and academy to private galleries; Theo worked as an art dealer at Boussod, Valadon & Cie.

For Van Gogh realistic and social themes were important: the Hague School, the work of the French painter Jean-François Millet and the poverty of the Belgian mining region. He read widely, including Dickens, Zola and Victor Hugo, and wrote about them in his letters. His early religious and social engagement coloured his view of workers and peasants.

During his lifetime recognition remained limited. Best documented is the sale of The Red Vineyard in 1890 to Anna Boch for 400 francs; he also exchanged work with colleagues, and Theo tried to sell his paintings. In January 1890 the critic Albert Aurier wrote a laudatory article in the Mercure de France.

The more than 800 surviving letters by Vincent, most of them to Theo, show how he worked: they discuss colour, composition, books, money and health. After his death exhibitions followed, including in Paris (1901) and Amsterdam (1905). His influence on Expressionism and Fauvism is widely recognised.

On 27 July 1890 Van Gogh, according to the usual account, shot himself in the chest; he walked back to the Ravoux inn in Auvers-sur-Oise and died there on 29 July, with Theo at his side. In 2011 the biographers Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith suggested that he may have been shot accidentally by others. The Van Gogh Museum called this interesting but considered it premature to rule out suicide.

Theo died in January 1891. His widow Johanna van Gogh-Bonger managed the estate and published the letters in 1914; their son Vincent Willem later placed the collection in a foundation, from which the Van Gogh Museum arose in 1973. The image of the 'mad artist' was partly formed later; the nature of his illness has never been established and his letters show an artist who built up his work deliberately.