(2) Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) Catalogues from 1928, As Is. The catalogues are from French and Belgian exhibitions of his work, almost forty years after the artist's tragic death. 

Condition: Commensurate with age. 

Size: 10 1/2 x 13 in. 

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30th, 1853 in Groot-Zundert in the North Brabant province of the Netherlands. From an early age he was fascinated by art, and his art dealer uncle helped him obtain a position at the dealership Goupil & Cie in The Hague in 1869. Although financially successful there he experienced intense mood swings, influenced by his profoundly religious minister father and the rejection of his landlady’s daughter, and he became a vocal critic of the trend of “growing commodification of art,” abruptly quitting in 1875. He became a Methodist minister’s assistant in Ramsgate, England, often doodling or translating passages from the Bible into English, French, and German. To support his religious conviction the family sent him to live with his uncle Johannes Stricker, a respected theologian, in Amsterdam. He failed the University of Amsterdam theology entrance exam, as well as a three-month course at a Protestant missionary school in Laken, near Brussels. He took up a post as a missionary at Petit-Wasmes in the working class district of Borinage in Belgium, but his adherence to humble living led him to being dismissed for “undermining the dignity of the priesthood.” Distraught, his parents threatened to commit him to a lunatic asylum in Geel, so Van Gogh lived in Cuesmes, the most destitute part of Borinage, surrounded by miners and coal workers. Inspired by them and the scenery, he began to draw after his brother Theo suggested that he try taking up art in earnest. On Theo’s recommendation he studied with the Dutch artist Willem Roelofs, who persuaded him to attend the Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts in 1880, where he studied anatomy and the standard rules of modeling and perspective. In 1881 he proposed marriage to his cousin Cornelia (which she emphatically rejected), and lit his left hand on fire with a lamp in despair (which did little to help his case). On the advice of his second cousin, the successful artist Anton Mauve, Van Gogh began to experiment with charcoal and pastels, eventually studying watercolors and oil painting under him directly. Although he had a falling out with Mauve he discovered a fervent love of oils, buying canvases and paints with money borrowed from his brother Theo. While painting weavers and their cottages in Nuenen he fell in love with his neighbor Margot Begemann, but neither family approved of them getting married. 1885 was a difficult year for Van Gogh, as Begemann attempted suicide and his father died of a heart attack. He moved to Antwerp and lived above a paint dealer’s shop, spending all the money Theo sent him on painting materials and models and living on bread, coffee, and tobacco. He studied color theory and became enamored with Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts, which he collected even during an extended period of hospitalization in 1886 for syphilis and alcohol poisoning. He took exams to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, but his unconventional painting led him into conflict with many of the teachers and students there, and he moved to Paris to stay in Theo’s apartment in Montmartre. Exposed to Pointillism and Neo-Impressionism, his style changed into what would become one of the most famous and influential looks of the Post-Impressionist movement. However, he and his brother quarreled constantly, and Van Gogh moved to Asnieres, where he befriended Paul Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec. In 1888 he sought fresher air in Arles, hoping to start an artist’s colony. After a prolonged series of arguments with Gauguin as their relationship began to deteriorate, Van Gogh began to hear voices and severed his left ear with a straight razor on December 23rd. Diagnosed with “acute mania with generalised delirium,” Van Gogh returned to work, now suffering from hallucinations, and voluntarily committed himself to an asylum in 1889, where he produced some of his most unique works including Lilacs and The Starry Night. His output was barely affected by long periods of depression and mania, with many of the hundreds of letters between he and Theo written during this time indicating his growing hopelessness. In 1890 his avant-garde work was given several exhibitions, and he moved out of the asylum to live in Auvers-sur-Oise. One of his last works, Wheatfield with Crows, was completed mere days before he shot himself in the chest with a revolver on July 27th, 1890. He died from an infection of the wound two days later, with Theo by his side. The most accepted retrospective diagnosis for his behavior is bipolar disorder exacerbated by malnutrition, insomnia, alcohol, and lead poisoning from his frequent habit of holding his paint brushes, drenched in thick oils, in his mouth while working. Barely appreciated at the time of his death, with only a single painting sold in his own lifetime, he is now considered one of the greatest artists who ever lived, whose melancholy visions translated into incredibly haunting and profound reflections of the human spirit. In just over a decade of his working life he created approximately 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings. Thanks in particular to the Fauves and the German Expressionists, Van Gogh’s work gained widespread critical and commercial success in the following decades, and he has become a lasting icon of the romantic ideal of the “tortured artist.” Today his works are among the world’s most expensive paintings ever sold. His legacy is celebrated by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which holds the world’s largest collection of his paintings and drawings.

#5513 . 

Commensurate with age.