Vincent van Gogh: The Paintings (Portrait of Doctor Gachet) Portrait of Doctor Gachet Next painting The Portrait of Doctor Gachet is one of Van Gogh's most famous paintings. It's notable for a number of reasons. It was painted in the last few months of Vincent's life and the subject has been the focus of a great deal of controversy. How competent was Doctor Gachet? What did Vincent mean when he wrote to Theo "First of all, he is sicker than I am, I think, or shall we say just as much" ( Letter 648 )? This portrait is also one of Van Gogh's most well known since it holds the distinction as the most expensive painting ever sold at auction. On 15 May 1990 The Portrait of Doctor Gachet was sold within three minutes for $82.5 million (U.S.) to Ryoei Saito, Japan's second-largest paper manufacturer. This record remains unbeaten, but an ironic footnote to this sale is the recent news that Christie's has purchased the work back from Mr. Saito for one-eighth the price he paid for it.

This marks a dramatic change in the vitality of the Japanese art-buying community from its zenith in the 1980's. In fact, Vincent did two portraits of Gachet: this and a companion piece ( F 754 ). In his original catalogue raisonnï¿½, Jacob Baart de la Faille considered the work above to be the superior of the two, but the editors of the 1970 catalogue disagreed and maintained that both works were the product of comparable skill. Whatever the opinion, it's clear that this particular Gachet portrait has had the far more colourful history. Note the plant on the table in front of Gachet. This is foxglove, from which the drug digitalis is derived. Some consider this to be a symbol for Gachet's profession or perhaps an indication that Van Gogh himself was being treated with digitalis while under Gachet's care. 'Portrait Of Dr. Gachet': A Van Gogh Painting, Once Obscure, Now Unseen BOOKS OF THE TIMES / By MICHIKO KAKUTANI 'Portrait Of Dr. Gachet': A Van Gogh Painting, Once Obscure, Now Unseen PORTRAIT OF DR.

GACHET The Story of a van Gogh Masterpiece By Cynthia Saltzman Illustrated. 408 pages. Viking. $25.95. an Gogh's "Portrait of Dr. Gachet" may not be as famous as "Starry Night" or one of his sunflower paintings, but it remains an iconic masterpiece of modernism, the last major portrait the artist completed before his suicide on July 28, 1890. The melancholy countenance of van Gogh's doctor stands not only as a testament to the painter's understanding of his own nervous disorder but also, in his words, as the "heartbroken expression of our time." It embodies all the angst and longing of the turn-of-the-century world the artist saw around him. Exactly a century later, when "Portrait of Dr.

Gachet" was sold by Christie's auction house for a record-breaking $82.5 million, the painting became emblematic of a very different sort of fin-de-siecle phenomenon: the commodification of art, which had accelerated in the 1980s, that era, as Cynthia Saltzman writes in her new book, of "high-flying stock markets, sudden wealth on a vast scale and financial empires founded on debt." Bought by a wealthy Japanese businessman, the painting would end up in a cloth-covered plywood box stored in a climate-controlled warehouse somewhere in Tokyo or its outskirts. With "Portrait of Dr. Gachet: The Story of a van Gogh Masterpiece," Ms. Saltzman has given us a unique and fascinating biography: the biography of a painting. It is not a complete biography, focusing less on the painting's creation and place in van Gogh's oeuvre than on its subsequent peregrinations around the world. But in telling the story of its many owners and dealers, Ms. Saltzman has succeeded in giving us an understanding of van Gogh's ascendant reputation, the shifting fortunes of modernist art and the headlong expansion of the art market.

CYNTHIA SALTZMAN A former art history student who worked as a reporter for Forbes and The Wall Street Journal, Ms. Saltzman brings to her task both an informed appreciation of van Gogh's work and a journalist's shrewd understanding of the market forces at work in the art world. She shows us the increasingly important role that critics and dealers began to play in the art world as the old academy and patronage systems broke down, and how a series of collectors, critics and curators committed to the modernist cause helped forge the reputation of "Gachet." Ms. Saltzman also points out that the legend that van Gogh acquired after his suicide helped make him a popular figure, but that this same myth nurtured skepticism among formalist critics like Roger Fry and Clement Greenberg, who tended to discount his work as being driven by emotional rather than aesthetic concerns.

This attitude changed decisively in the 1980s, she argues, when scholarly reconsiderations of van Gogh's oeuvre -- combined with two pivotal exhibitions, "Van Gogh in Arles" and "Van Gogh in St.-Remy and Auvers" -- began to "sweep away romanticized images of van Gogh." The old image of the painter as an emotionally volatile, gifted amateur gave way, she writes, to "a factually grounded account of the artist as a consummate professional" at the very center of postimpressionist innovation. So how did van Gogh's "Gachet" go from being "an obscure object worth at most a few hundred francs" to being one of the costliest paintings in the world? After the death of van Gogh and his brother, Theo, Ms. Saltzman recounts, "Gachet" passed from Theo's widow, Johanna, to the ambitious dealer Ambroise Vollard, who in turn sold it for some 300 francs (about $58) to Alice Ruben, a wealthy Danish collector with a taste for avant-garde art.

By 1911, "Gachet" had turned up in Germany, where Georg Swarzenski, a scholar of medieval art and the director of Frankfurt's Staedelsches Kunstinstitut, bought it for roughly $3,900. Swarzenski saw the painting as a means "to advance his quiet revolutionary plan to bring modern art" to Frankfurt, and in acquiring it, Ms. Saltzman writes, he "revealed his judgment as an expert that the canvas, now only 20 years old, was a masterpiece worthy to be hung in the company of Albrecht Duerer, Hans Holbein, Rogier van der Weyden and Rembrandt." The Staedelsches, however, was not to be the final home of "Gachet." When the Nazis took over, they condemned works of French and German modernism as degenerate. They confiscated questionable artworks and made plans to sell them on the international market to raise money for the state. In 1938, Ms.

Saltzman reports, Hermann Goering arranged to have "Gachet" sold to Franz Koenigs, a German banker living in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, for some $53,000; that money, she says, was diverted to pay for Goering's own art-collecting schemes. Although Koenigs was an ardent collector himself, he quickly turned over "Gachet" to Siegfried Kramarsky, a Jewish philanthropist who lived in the Netherlands -- possibly to pay off part of a debt. Aware of the mounting dangers of war, Kramarsky had the painting shipped to the United States for safe keeping in August 1939; he and his family soon followed it. The painting hung in their New York apartment until 1984, when it was sent to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on "indefinite loan." In 1990, Ms.

Saltzman writes, inflated art prices and the Reagan administration's 1986 tax code (which removed incentives for American collectors to give their art to museums) helped persuade Kramarsky's heirs to place "Gachet" on the auction block, where it was sold to a Japanese businessman named Ryoei Saito. Two ironies attended the sale. In 1993, Saito was arrested on charges of paying a bribe to change zoning restrictions on a piece of land his company wanted for a golf club; the club was to be named Vincent after Vincent van Gogh. Second: While the painting had, in a sense, come full circle -- a passionate collector of Japanese prints, van Gogh once declared that all his work was "founded on Japanese art" -- it would effectively disappear from sight in Japan. Like the fabled ark in the movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark," it has been carefully crated and warehoused, turned into an anonymous piece of property, safe, protected and, for all practical purposes, invisible to those who might appreciate its power.

In May 1990, when van Gogh's painting Portrait of Dr.Gachet was sold, it set a record price for an auctioned work of art. Howmuch was the winning bid?... Sign up View the step-by-step solution to: In May 1990, when van Gogh's painting Portrait of Dr.Gachet was sold, it set a record price for an auctioned work of art. Howmuch was the winning bid?... This question was answered on May 21, 2016. View the Answer In May 1990, when van Gogh's painting Portrait of Dr.Gachet was sold, it set a record price for an auctioned work of art. Howmuch was the winning bid? A. $825,000 manderfisher8 posted a question · May 21, 2016 at 12:35am Top Answer The way to approach this...

View the full answer {[ getNetScore(29643688) ]} ProfessorFranc answered the question · May 21, 2016 at 12:36am Other Answers 1 comment Portrait of Dr. Gachet is one of the most revered paintings by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. It depicts Dr. Paul Gachet who took care of Van Gogh during the final months of his life. There are two authenticated versions of the portrait, both painted in June 1890 at Auvers-sur-Oise. Both show Gachet sitting at a table and leaning his head on his right arm but they are easily differentiated in color and style. In 1990, the first version fetched a record price of $82.5 million ($75 million, plus a 10 percent buyer's commission) when sold at auction in New York. yrakesh May 21, 2016 at 12:37am {[ getNetScore(29643691) ]} Portrait of Dr. Gachet, 1990 by Vincent Van Gogh Courtesy of Portrait of Dr.

Gachet is one of the most revered paintings by the Vincent van Gogh. It depicts Dr. Paul Gachet who took care of Van Gogh during the final months of his life. There are two authenticated versions of the portrait, both painted in June 1890 at Auvers. Both show Doctor Gachet sitting at a table and leaning his head on his right arm but they are easily differentiated in color and style. In 1990, the first version fetched a record price of $82.5 million ($75 million, plus a 10 percent buyer's commission) when sold at auction in New York. When accounting for inflation, this is still the highest price paid for art at a public auction. In 1890, Van Gogh's brother Theo was searching for a home for the artist upon his release from an asylum at Saint-R�my. Upon the recommendation of Camille Pissarro , a former patient of the doctor who told Theo of Gachet's interests in working with artists, Theo sent Vincent to Gachet's second home in Auvers. Vincent van Gogh's first impression of Gachet was unfavorable.

Writing to Theo he remarked: "I think that we must not count on Dr. Gachet at all. First of all, he is sicker than I am, I think, or shall we say just as much, so that's that. Now when one blind man leads another blind man, don't they both fall into the ditch?" However, in a letter dated two days later to their sister Wilhelmina, he relayed, "I have found a true friend in Dr. Gachet, something like another brother, so much do we resemble each other physically and also mentally." Van Gogh's thoughts returned several times to the painting by Eugene Delacroix of Torquato Tasso in the madhouse. After a visit with Paul Gauguin to Montpellier to see Alfred Bruyas's collection in the Mus�e Fabre, Van Gogh wrote to Theo, asking if he could find a copy of the lithograph after the painting.

Three and a half months earlier, he had been thinking of the painting as an example of the sort of portraits he wanted to paint: "But it would be more in harmony with what Eug�ne Delacroix attempted and brought off in his Tasso in Prison, and many other pictures, representing a real man. Ah! portraiture, portraiture with the thought, the soul of the model in it, that is what I think must come." Van Gogh wrote to his brother in 1890 about the painting: "I've done the portrait of M. Gachet with a melancholy expression, which might well seem like a grimace to those who see it... Sad but gentle, yet clear and intelligent, that is how many portraits ought to be done...

There are modern heads that may be looked at for a long time, and that may perhaps be looked back on with longing a hundred years later." Van gogh portrait of dr gachet | The most expensive artworks in pictures - Art Art Previous slide Next slide 11 of 14 View All Skip Ad Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu Couché sold for $170.4 million (£113 million) at Christie's in November 2015, making it the second-highest auction price for any artwork . Nu Couché (Reclining Nude) was sold in New York after a protracted bidding battle to a buyer who wished to remain anonymous, according to the auction house. The 1917-18 painting had the highest pre-sale estimate of any lot in the three sales by the major auction houses of Impressionist, modern, postwar and contemporary art. The painting became the tenth work of art to sell for more than $100 million at auction, and was nearly joined by Roy Lichtenstein's 1964 Nurse, which sold for $95.3 million on Monday night, smashing the previous record for a work by the pop artist.

To hollering cheers and applause, a lot of head-shaking and even more gasps, a Pablo Picasso masterpiece went under the hammer for a world record auction price on Monday evening of $179.4 million (£116m). There was an audible intake of breath in Christie’s Rockefeller Centre auction room in midtown Manhattan when the bids for the vibrantly-hued canvas of Les femmes d’Alger (Version O) hit $150 million. At $151 million, Jussi Pylkkanen, the Christie’s president, chief auctioneer and master of ceremonies for the evening, declared: “We’re in new territory”. Three million dollars later, some attendees simply laughed. And at $160 million - or that historic figure of $179.4 million when all the fees were included – Mr Pylkkanen spread his arms, cast his eyes around the room a final time and brought down his hammer. Picture: Getty When will you Marry?

(Nafea faa ipoipo), Paul Gaugin, £197 million In February this year Gaugin’s 1892 oil painting sold at the highest price ever for a work of art: $300 million, or £197 million. It was sold privately by major Swiss art collector Rudolf Staechelin to an unknown buyer. When Gaugin returned to Europe from Tahiti in the early 1890s, his paintings of indigenous subjects (When Will You Marry? among them) were met with indifference, but later influenced the likes of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Joan Miró. Picture: EPA The Card Players, Paul Cézanne, £158.4 million Cézanne’s 1890s painting of two working-class men from his family’s estate was bought by the Qatari royal family for $250 million (£158.4 million) - more than double the previous auction record. Although the sale took place in 2011, the details of the secret deal only emerged in February 2012.

The painting had previously belonged to Greek shipping magnate George Embiricos and the four other Cézanne paintings in the post-Impressionist series are held by the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Courtauld Institute in London and the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Picture: Handout Three Studies of Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, £89.3 million The Francis Bacon triptych of his friend and rival artist Lucian Freud became the most valuable work of art ever sold at auction in November 2013, fetching $142.4 million (almost £90 million) at Christie's in New York. 'Three Studies of Lucian Freud', which was painted in painted in 1969, was one of only two full-length triptychs Bacon ever painted of Freud. Picture: EPA No. 5, Jackson Pollock, £89 million Another sale shrouded in secrecy, the purchase of Jackson Pollock’s 1948 painting No. 5 was brokered by Sotheby’s.

David Martinez reportedly bought the 8’ x 4’ piece of fibreboard, covered in drips of brown and yellow paint from Dreamworks co-founder David Geffen for $140 million, or £89 million, in November 2006. The New York Times reported the sale, but Martinez’s law firm later issued a statement saying he did not own it. The above image is of Pollock’s No. 4 painting, which sold in Sotheby’s for £25 million. Picture: Getty Images Woman III, Willem de Kooning, £88.3m In 2006, hedge fund Steven A. Cohen bought one of Dutch painter de Kooning's “Woman” series for approximately $137.5 million from super collector and head of Geffen Records, David Geffen. Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, Gustav Klimt, £85.7 million Cosmetics magnate Ronald S.

Lauder broke the record for the highest sum ever paid for a painting in July 2006 when he paid $135 million (£85.7 million) for Gustav Klimt’s 1907 work, Portrait of Adele Block-Bauer 1. Again, this is a price gauged by experts close to the deal, as Mr Lauder was forbidden from revealing the price, which was negotiated by Christie’s. Picture: AFP The Scream, Edvard Munch, £76.3 million Edvard Munch’s expressionist masterpiece was bought by an anonymous buyer for $120 million (£76.3 million) at Sotheby’s New York in 2012. The painting’s previous owner was businessman Petter Olsen, who acquired it as his father was a friend of Munch’s. Bidding lasted just 12 minutes and the work had a starting price of $40 million. Picture: AFP Garcon à la Pipe, Pablo Picasso, £66.1 million Picasso’s charming portrait was at the centre of a telephone bidding war at Sotheby’s in 2004, and was finally sold for $104.1 million.

The painting was sold by the collectors and gallerists John Hay Whitney and Betsey Cushing Roosevelt Whitney. The influence of this pair in the art world is thought to have boosted the price of the painting. Picture: EPA Portrait of Dr Gachet, Vincent van Gogh, £52.4 million Van Gogh’s portrait of the medic who cared for him in the final months of his life broke records when it was sold in 1990 for $82.5 million. The portrait was bought by a Tokyo art dealer on behalf of Japanese industrialist Ryoei Saito. However, when Saito died in debt, the painting disappeared into the international art market and its whereabouts remain unknown. Picture: AP Diana and Actaeon, Titian, £50 million This painting by Renaissance master Titian is one in a series of seven famous “poesies” canvasses by the painter. Now in the joint possession of the National Gallery in London and the National Galleries of Scotland, the previous owner the Duke of Sutherland claimed he didn’t do too well out of the £50 million deal.

The Duke will avoid inheritance tax and capital gains tax by selling the paintings to public collections, however he was reported saying he could have made more money by selling them in the open market. Picture: Reuters Bal du Moulin de la Galette, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, £49.6 million Sold in 1990, Renoir’s depiction of Sunday afternoon jollity in Paris’s Montmartre reached $78.1 million at an auction held at Sotheby’s. As the painting was also bought by the controversial Japanese industrialist Ryoei Saito, its whereabouts are also unknown after Saito’s death. It is thought to be in the hands of a Swiss collector. Picture: Biography Channel Portrait of Joseph Roulin, Vincent Van Gogh, £36.7 million In 1989 the Museum of Modern Art in New York bought this painting from a private collection in Zurich for $58 million (£36.7 million). Accounting for inflation, this remains one of the most expensive paintings ever sold. The portrait was painted exactly 100 years before the sale and is one of six Van Gogh painted of his close friend Roulin, who was a postman in Arles.

Picture: Alamy Van Gogh Work Bought For Record $82.5 Million - tribunedigital-orlandosentinel Van Gogh Work Bought For Record $82.5 Million May 16, 1990|By New York Times NEW YORK — Vincent van Gogh's haunting ''Portrait of Dr. Gachet,'' completed six weeks before the artist's suicide in 1890, was bought Tuesday night for $82.5 million by Gallery Kobayashi of Tokyo in a sale at Christie's in New York. The price was the highest ever paid for a work of art bought at an auction house. ''This is by far the world's most expensive painting,'' surpassing the $53.9 million price bid for van Gogh's ''Irises'' in November 1987 at Sotheby's auction house, said Susan Britman, spokeswoman for Christie's.

<script type=\"text/javascript\" src=\""></script>");document.close();})();' frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="649" height="160"> The buyer, who was not immediately identified, was in the room during the approximately 10 minutes of bidding that opened at $20 million, Britman said. The van Gogh sold for $75 million plus a 10 percent buyer's fee, bringing the total price to $82.5 million. The sale of the van Gogh represented the high point in Christie's auction of 81 offerings at what was probably a record sale, Christie's said. Christie's expectations for this sale had been $248.5 million to $334.9 million. The record total for an art auction was $269.5 million, the figure achieved last November at Sotheby's in New York in a sale of 70 out of 74 offerings that included Pablo Picasso's 1905 self-portrait as a Harlequin with Columbine. It was bought for $40.7 million by Walter Annenberg, the art collector, publisher and former U.S. ambassador to Britain.

The van Gogh painting of the troubled and introspective Dr. Paul-Ferdinand Gachet, the artist's physician and friend, was the first of two such studies he did in oil. At 26 3/8 by 22 inches, the painting sold Tuesday is slightly smaller than the less colorful Gachet at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. While working on the portrait, van Gogh described the work in letters to many people. To Paul Gauguin, he wrote he had painted Gachet ''with the heartbroken expression of our time.'' <script type=\"text/javascript\" src=\""></script>");document.close();})();' frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="649" height="110"> MORE: Summary/Reviews: Portrait of Dr. Gachet : Staff View SUMMARY "Portrait of Dr. Gachet was one of van Gogh's last paintings, completed just weeks before his suicide. Depicting the eccentric physician who was attempting to treat the artist, this painting was viewed by van Gogh as a summation of his ideas about portraiture.

Cynthia Saltzman's book reconstructs the journey of this revolutionary and haunting painting, in which, as van Gogh wrote, he strove to capture the "heartbroken expression of our time."" "As Saltzman superbly shows, this painting not only evokes the ethos of modern life but also illuminates the ways in which art, politics, and the market have intersected in the twentieth century. Affected by broad social and cultural change, the painting's fate was also influenced by innovations in the way art was sold and displayed, and by the growing role of dealers and museums."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved Review by Booklist Review After years of public display at the Met, the famously melancholic Portrait of Dr. Gachet was auctioned off in 1990 for a record-smashing price, then shipped to Japan where it lay in boxed storage. And that was not the painting's first removal from public viewing: the Nazis confiscated it from a Frankfurt museum as a piece of "degenerate" art and spirited it onto the art market, hoping, if not to get some appreciation out of it, to make some meager marks instead.

Such are some of the convolutions in this splendid tale, in which Saltzman uses the canvas' history to identify synergies between art, politics, and commerce. She elides easily between these elements of Gachet's story, launching from the subject of the painting, a crank of a doctor who attended Van Gogh in his last weeks, into a journey of fascinating biography based on the painting's dozen or so owners and their roles in creating a market for postimpressionists. An amply illustrated work bound to attract artistic and general attention. --Gilbert Taylor From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission. Review by Publisher's Weekly Review Saltzman's meticulously researched narrative shows how historical forces and turning points in individual lives have determined the fate of a celebrated painting. The story begins in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, where a disturbed Vincent van Gogh churned out his last work before his suicide in 1890.

Physician Paul-Ferdinand Gachet, a melancholic amateur painter, did little to alleviate van Gogh's suffering, but he posed for the portrait that captured, in van Gogh's own words, "the heartbroken expression of our time." Over the next century, the painting had 13 owners; it was hung in private homes and world-famous museums, and traveled to Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and New York. Confiscated as "degenerate art" by the Nazis and smuggled out of Germany during WWII, it was on loan off and on for 50 years to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, before fetching $82.5 million at auction. Since the death of its last owner, a Japanese paper magnate, its whereabouts are unknown, and the art world waits for the masterpiece to resurface. Meanwhile, though this book's detail about art dealers and collectors may be more than the casual reader wishes to know, the capsule biography of van Gogh, the criminality of Nazi art thieves and the fevered May 15, 1990, art auction at Christie's provide gripping real-life drama.

In all, Saltzman (a former reporter for Forbes and the Wall Street Journal) offers an illuminating case study of provenance. Eight pages of b&w illustrations not seen by PW. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved Review by Library Journal Review Weeks before his suicide in 1890, van Gogh painted a portrait of his physician in a melancholy pose and uncannily labeled it "the heartbroken expression of our time." This is a richly detailed, dramatic account of the amazing journey of the portrait from its creation in a French village to the record-breaking $82.5 million paid for it by a Japanese industrialist a century later. After several ownerships, it was placed in a Frankfurt museum only to be confiscated by the Nazis and deposited in a Berlin warehouse. When the avaricious Hermann Göring sold the canvas, it was acquired by a Jewish investment banker living in Amsterdam, who fled to New York with Dr. Gachet.

Saltzman, a former reporter, weaves a spellbinding narrative involving the global art market, political upheavals, connoisseurs, dealers, and the sad visage of Dr. Gachet, which is now again on the auction block. Recommended for all audiences.Joan Levin, MLS, Chicago (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. (c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Similar Items 7 Things You May Not Know About Vincent Van Gogh - History in the Headlines 7 Things You May Not Know About Vincent Van Gogh July 8, 2015 By Elizabeth Nix An 1887 van Gogh self-portrait (Credit: Art Institute of Chicago/Wikimedia Commons) Share this: 7 Things You May Not Know About Vincent Van Gogh Author 7 Things You May Not Know About Vincent Van Gogh URL Google Today, his paintings command eye-popping prices and hang in museums around the world, but when Vincent van Gogh died at age 37 on July 29, 1890, his work was largely unknown. Find out more about the Dutch-born painter, including what he did before becoming an artist, the unusual place where he painted some of his best-known works and why he might not have been responsible for cutting off his own ear. He failed at multiple jobs before becoming an artist. The son of a minister, van Gogh started working at age 16, when his uncle got him a job as a trainee with an art dealership in The Hague.

He went on to do stints in the firm’s London and Paris offices before he was fired in 1876. Afterward, he worked briefly as a schoolteacher in England then at a bookstore back in the Netherlands. In 1878, he went to the Borinage, a mining district in Belgium, and worked among the poor as a lay preacher. He gave away his belongings and slept on floors, but after less than a year on the job the religious organization sponsoring van Gogh decided he wasn’t cut out to be a pastor and dismissed him. His next career choice, artist, would of course make him internationally famous, although not until after his death. 2. Van Gogh’s art career was relatively brief. Theo van Gogh in 1878. Theo van Gogh in 1878. When his attempt to become a preacher didn’t work out, van Gogh, who’d sketched local miners and peasants while living in Belgium, decided in 1880 to focus on art. In 1881, the Dutchman, who was primarily a self-taught artist, returned home to the Netherlands, where he devoted himself to drawing and painting.

His younger brother Theo, an art dealer, helped support him financially and emotionally. In 1886, van Gogh went to live with Theo in Paris, and his two years in the French capital proved pivotal. He was exposed to the work of Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist artists and started using a lighter, brighter palette and experimenting with brushstroke techniques. He spent his last two years in the south of France, where he produced a number of his best-known paintings. By the time of his death in 1890, van Gogh had started to garner critical acclaim. However, during his decade-long career he sold just a handful of the more than 850 paintings and nearly 1,300 works on paper he’d created.In 1990, a century after he painted it, Van Gogh’s “Portrait of Dr. Gachet” sold at auction for a record-breaking $82.5 million. The price, when adjusted for inflation, remains one of the highest ever paid for a painting. Scholars have questioned whether he cut off his own ear.

In February 1888, after spending two years in Paris, van Gogh moved to the town of Arles in the south of France, where he hoped to form a community of artists. He invited the painter Paul Gauguin, whom he’d met in Paris, to come live with him. After Theo van Gogh essentially bribed Gauguin to become his brother’s housemate, the French-born artist (whose work, like Vincent’s, had yet to receive widespread acclaim) arrived in Arles in the fall of 1888. Van Gogh and Gauguin initially got along but eventually their relationship soured. On the night of December 23, 1888, the two men argued and Gauguin left their house. Van Gogh, armed with a razor, followed his fellow artist out onto the street; however, rather than attacking him, the Dutchman returned home, cut off part of his left ear, wrapped it in newspaper then gave it to a prostitute.

This is the commonly held version of what happened; however, in 2009 two German academics published a book in which they made the case that Gauguin, a talented fencer, sliced off a portion of van Gogh’s ear with a saber during a dispute. According to this theory, van Gogh, who didn’t want to lose the friendship, agreed to cover up the truth about the incident in order to prevent Gauguin from going to jail. He produced some of his most famous paintings while in a mental asylum. In May 1889, van Gogh, who’d experienced episodes of poor mental health in the previous months, checked himself into Saint Paul de Mausole, a mental hospital located in a former monastery in the town of Saint-Remy-de-Provence in southern France. Although at the time the painter was diagnosed with epilepsy, researchers have since suggested a host of alternative diagnoses, including bipolar disorder, alcoholism and acute intermittent porphyria, a metabolic disorder. Whatever the cause of his medical troubles, van Gogh’s treatment at Saint Paul consisted primarily of long baths. He stayed at the hospital for a year, during which time he painted scenes of its gardens as well as the surrounding countryside.

The more than 100 paintings he produced during this period include some of his most celebrated works, such as “The Starry Night,” which was acquired by New York City’s Museum of Modern Art in 1941, and “Irises,” which was purchased by an Australian industrialist in 1987 for a then-record sum of $53.9 million. Since 1990, the painting has been owned by the J. Paul Getty Museum, which bought it for an undisclosed amount. He never married or had children. A van Gogh painting of Agostina Segatori. Van Gogh was unlucky in love. In the early 1880s, when he was starting out as an artist and living with his parents in the Netherlands, he fell in love with his widowed cousin, Kee Vos-Stricker. Although she rejected him, he didn’t give up easily, which led to tensions with his parents, who also weren’t thrilled with his new choice of career. Next, he became involved with a woman named Sien Hoornik, a former prostitute who served as his model and also had young children.

Van Gogh’s family disapproved of Hoornik and the relationship eventually ended. Later, while still residing in the Netherlands, he had a relationship with an older neighbor, Margot Begemann, who attempted to kill herself because her family opposed the match. In Paris, van Gogh got involved with an artist’s model and café owner named Agostina Segatori, but that romance fell apart as well. There’s been speculation his death wasn’t a suicide. The long-held theory about van Gogh’s death is that on July 27, 1890, he shot himself in the abdomen while painting in a wheat field in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, then walked about a mile back to the inn where he was staying and passed away there two days later.

However, in a 2011 biography of van Gogh, its respected co-authors offered an alternative theory: He was accidentally shot by a teenage boy who was known to have mocked van Gogh, but the lonely painter said his wound was self-inflicted because he felt the teen (who was possibly accompanied by a sibling) was helping him out by pulling the trigger, thereby putting an end to van Gogh’s unhappiness and ensuring he was no longer a financial burden to Theo. The authors claimed their theory was supported by a variety of evidence, including the fact that the gun, along with the painting supplies van Gogh supposedly took with him to the wheat field, were never found. Additionally, if van Gogh had shot himself it would’ve been tough for someone in his condition to make it all the way from the wheat field back to the inn, according to the authors; they noted that a man reported hearing the gunshot coming not from the wheat field but from a location in Auvers, about half a mile from van Gogh’s inn, a distance which would’ve been easier for the injured artist to navigate. As with the conflicting theories about how van Gogh lost part of his ear, though, no one can prove definitively how he died.

Van Gogh’s sister-in-law played a role in his posthumous fame. Jo van Gogh-Bonger with her son, Vincent. In January 1891, six months after van Gogh’s death, his brother Theo, who’d contracted syphilis, died at age 34 in the Netherlands. Theo’s widow, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, inherited a large collection of Vincent’s paintings, drawings and letters. She made it her mission to help promote van Gogh’s work, in part by loaning it out for various exhibitions. Additionally, in 1914 she published a collection of letters written by van Gogh, in an effort to tell his life story. That same year, she had Theo’s remains moved from the Netherlands and re-interred in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, where Vincent was buried.After Jo passed away, her only child with Theo, Vincent Willem van Gogh, inherited his uncle’s artwork and eventually founded the Van Gogh Museum, which opened in Amsterdam in 1973. Tags

Question: In May 1990 ‘Portrait of Dr Gachet’ by which artist was sold at auction for a record 82.5 Million US dollars?
Answer: Vincent van Gough