Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist, a predecessor of Expressionism, whose revolutionary paintings had an enormous influence on 20th century art. Many of his paintings—including his numerous self portraits, landscapes, portraits and sunflowers—are among the world's most revered, recognizable and expensive works of art. Little appreciated during his lifetime, his reputation vastly increased in the years after his death. He is today regarded as one of history's greatest artists, and an important contributor to the foundations of modern art. A central figure in his life was his younger brother Theo, an art dealer who continually and selflessly provided financial and emotional support to the troubled artist. Their lifelong friendship, and most of what is known of Vincent's thoughts and theories of art, is recorded in the hundreds of letters they began exchanging from August 1872.

Van Gogh did not begin his career as an artist until he was about 27. During his last ten years he produced more than 2,000 pieces, including around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches. Most of his best-known works were produced during his final two years, amid recurrent bouts of mental illness. He committed suicide at the age of 37.