Vincent van Gogh was born on the
30th of March 1853 in Groot-Zundert,
The Netherlands. He had three
sisters and two brothers.
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Van Gogh died of a gunshot
wound to the stomach at
Auvers-sur-Oise, France on
the 29th of July 1890, aged 37. It is not clear how the
wound was caused.
Van Gogh did not start painting
until he was 27. In the ten
years up until his death, he
produced nearly 900 paintings.
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Van Gogh painted his own self
portrait over thirty times, including
the famous Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear.
In May 1990, van Gogh's painting The Portrait of Doctor Gachet sold
for $82.5million at Christie's, New
York. The auction only took three
minutes!
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It is believed that van Gogh
only sold one painting of his
own during his lifetime; Red
Vineyard at Arles. It is now in the collection at the Pushkin
Museum, Moscow, Russia.
The colours in van Gogh's paintings
have become less vibrant since he painted them. Like many painters of
the time, he used a pigment called
chrome yellow which fades and
changes as time passes.
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In December 1888 part of van
Gogh's ear was cut off during an
argument with Paul Gauguin.
Experts are not sure whether he cut it off himself or if it happened
during a fight between the pair.
Throughout his life van Gogh
suffered from bouts of mental illness. One of his most famous
works, The Starry Night, was
painted while he was receiving
treatment in hospital.
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After his death, van Gogh's sister-in-law,
Johanna van Gogh-Bonger promoted
his work. She edited and published the
brothers' letters. Her son, Vincent Willem van Gogh, founded the Van
Gogh museum in Amsterdam.
Van Gogh was close friends with the
artist Paul Gauguin. They lived and
worked together for a time at van
Gogh's house in Arles, France.
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Van Gogh originally wanted to be
church pastor, like his father. He
even lived for a while in Belgium, preaching to miners and their
families.
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When he was 13, van Gogh
was sent to school in Tilburg, The Netherlands. He left
halfway through his second
year and never went back to
school.
When van Gogh was 16, he
became an apprentice art dealer at his uncle's company in
The Hague, The Netherlands.
His brother Theo also worked
for the company.
In 1876, van Gogh was
dismissed from his job as an art dealer. He worked for
a while as a teacher, first in
Ramsgate and later in
Isleworth, London, England.
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Van Gogh's brother Theo
died six months after him
and they are buried side by side in the town cemetery of
Auvers-sur-Oise, France.
Van Gogh was a prolific letter
writer. Most of the 800 letters he wrote were to his brother,
Theo. Theo supported him
financially, so that he was
able to paint.
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Van Gogh did not have the
money to pay for professional
models, so he painted subjects such as flowers, landscapes
and himself instead.
When van Gogh was living in
Paris, he became interested in Japanese art, which was very
fashionable at the time. He had
over 600 prints in his studio for
inspiration.
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Van Gogh's earlier paintings,
such as The Potato Eaters,
are dark and sombre. His
later works are much more colourful and vivid, for
example Sunflowers.
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