Vincent van Gogh

Biography

Van Gogh painted for about ten years. He sold almost nothing while he was alive and he leaned on his brother Theo for money the whole time.

He is the most completely documented artist on this site, and it is not close. 903 of his letters survive. He wrote 820 of them and more than 650 of those went to Theo. He used them to describe what he was painting and why, and many of them include a quick sketch of the picture he was working on that week.

How Vincent van Gogh Worked

If you want proof that a person made a painting, Van Gogh left a written trail nobody could fake after the fact. He names the colors he bought. He argues with himself about a composition, changes his mind, then reports what happened when he tried it. The Starry Night was painted in June 1889 from the east window of his room at the asylum in Saint-Remy, and the village in it was never there. The picture and the paperwork agree.

What Backs This Record

903 surviving letters published by the Van Gogh Museum, museum catalogue records for the paintings, and pigment analysis that matches the materials he named in writing.

Van Gogh died in 1890, so the work itself is out of copyright everywhere. Museums still control their own photographs, so check the record for whichever image file you want to use.

• Vincent van Gogh: The Letters, Van Gogh Museum
• The Starry Night, Museum of Modern Art

Documented Work