Van Gogh paintings shown

On March 17, 1901, paintings by the late Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh are
shown at the Bernheim-Jeune gallery in Paris. The 71 paintings, which captured
their subjects in bold brushstrokes and expressive colors, caused a sensation
across the art world. Eleven years before, while living in Auvers-sur-Oise
outside Paris, van Gogh had committed suicide without any notion that his work
was destined to win acclaim beyond his wildest dreams. In his lifetime, he had
sold only one painting. One of his paintings--the Yasuda Sunflowers--sold
for just under $40 million at a Christie's auction in 1987.

Born in Zundert in the Netherlands in 1853, van Gogh worked as a salesman in
an art gallery, a language teacher, a bookseller, and an evangelist among
Belgium miners before settling on his true vocation as an artist. What is known
as the "productive decade" began in 1880, and for the first few years he
confined himself almost entirely to drawings and watercolors while acquiring
technical proficiency. He studied drawing at the Brussels Academy and in 1881
went to the Netherlands to work from nature. The most famous work from the Dutch
period was the dark and earthy The Potato Eaters (1885), which showed the
influence of Jean-Francois Millet, a French painter famous for his peasant
subjects.

In 1886, van Gogh went to live with his brother, Theo, in Paris. There, van
Gogh met the foremost French painters of the postimpressionist period, including
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, Camille Pissarro, and Georges Seurat.
He was greatly influenced by the theories of these artists and under the advice
of Pissarro he adopted the kind of colorful palette for which he is famous. His
painting Portrait of Pere Tanguy (1887) was the first successful work in
his new postimpressionist style.

In 1888, van Gogh, mentally exhausted and feeling he was becoming a burden on
Theo, left Paris and took a house at Arles in southeastern France. The next 12
months marked his first great period, and working with great speed and intensity
he produced such masterful works as his sunflower series and The Night
Cafe (1888). He hoped to form a community of like-minded artists at Arles
and was joined by Gauguin for a tense two months that culminated when van Gogh
threatened Gauguin with a razor blade and then cut a piece of his own ear off.
It was his first bout with mental illness, diagnosed as dementia.

Van Gogh spent two weeks at the Arles Hospital and in April 1889 checked
himself into the asylum at Saint-Remy-de-Provence. He stayed there for 12 months
and continued to work between recurrent attacks. One of the great paintings from
this period was the swirling, visionary Starry Night (1889). In May 1890,
he left the asylum and visited Theo in Paris before going to live with
Paul-Ferdinand Gachet, a homeopathic doctor and friend of Pissarro, at
Auvers-sur-Oise. He worked enthusiastically for several months, but his mental
and emotional state soon deteriorated. In late July 1890, feeling that he was a
burden on Theo and others, he shot himself. He died two days later, on July 29,
in the arms of his brother.

He had exhibited a few canvases at the Salon des Independants in Paris and in
Brussels, and after his death both salons showed small commemorative exhibits of
his work. Over the next decade, a handful of other van Gogh exhibits took place,
but it was not until the Bernheim-Jeune show in 1901 that he was recognized as a
truly important painter. In subsequent decades, his fame grew exponentially, and
today his paintings are among the most recognized works of art in the world.