Van Gogh: A Retrospective

By the time he died in 1890 at the age of thirty-seven, Vincent van Gogh had painted hundreds of pictures, yet had sold only a few. Today, his paintings sell for millions of dollars each, and his life as an artist is legendary. He is the quintessential modern artist, operating on the edge of his sensibilities, where life and art are inextricably bound together. Van Gogh: A Retrospective tells the story of the great Dutch artist as a single volume has never told it before, illuminating his work with a fascinating selection of primary texts, including some of Van Gogh's letters. In 125 superb color reproductions and 103 black-and-white illustrations, the struggles and triumphs of Van Gogh's art are surveyed from the early dark landscapes and paintings of Dutch and Belgian laborers to the bright, intense visions of Paris, Arles, Saint-Remy, and Auvers, where he took his life. Complementing the works are pertinent photographs from the period and portraits of the artist by Toulouse-Lautrec, Emile Bernard, Paul Gauguin, and others. The literary part of this unique book traces Van Gogh's life and achievements through the eyes of critics, poets and friends, from an 1879-80 report on his work with Belgian miners to the obituaries, reviews, reminiscences, and evaluations that followed his death. Included are letters from his brother Theo; commentaries by Seurat, Gauguin, Bernard, Denis, Signac, and other contemporary artists; and appreciations by artists of later generations, among them Kandinsky, Klee, Sickert, Malevich, Vlaminck, Sloan, and Magritte.Stein, Susan Alyson is the author of 'Van Gogh: A Retrospective' with ISBN 9780883633106 and ISBN 0883633108.