Van Gogh Sold Only One Painting in His Life

The Starry Night hangs in New York, and people queue to see it. The man who painted it sold, as far as we know, one painting in his whole life. When he died at 37 he left hundreds of canvases that almost nobody wanted. So how did Vincent van Gogh become one of the most famous painters in the world? This film follows Vincent's ten years as a painter: the late start among miners and peasants, colour in Paris, the yellow house in Arles, Gauguin and the ear, the window at Saint-Rémy where he painted The Starry Night, the one sale we can be sure of, and his last seventy days in Auvers. It ends with how the paintings nobody wanted reached us, through his sister-in-law, Jo van Gogh-Bonger. 🔎 Explore every painting in this film in high resolution: https://openartgallery.xyz Chapters 0:00 The painting in New York 0:49 A late start 1:58 Colour 2:46 The yellow house 4:03 The window 5:06 One sale 5:55 Seventy days 7:09 Jo 8:41 Coda Subtitles: English, 简体中文, 繁體中文, Español, Português, Français, Deutsch, Italiano, 日本語, 한국어, Norsk Sources Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam: Vincent van Gogh – The Letters (vangoghletters.org), letters 497 (April 1885), 822 (to Émile Bernard, November 1889) and 898 (to Theo and Jo, July 1890) · Museum of Modern Art, New York (The Starry Night; Lillie P. Bliss Bequest, 1941) · Hans Luijten, Alles voor Vincent: Het leven van Jo van Gogh-Bonger (2019; English edition: Everything for Vincent, 2022) · Steven Naifeh & Gregory White Smith, Van Gogh: The Life (2011) · G.-Albert Aurier, "Les Isolés: Vincent van Gogh", Mercure de France, January 1890. Credits Artworks: public-domain reproductions (Open Art Gallery, Wikimedia Commons; originals in the Museum of Modern Art, Van Gogh Museum, Kröller-Müller Museum, Musée d'Orsay, National Gallery London, Pushkin Museum, Courtauld, Getty, Musée Rodin and others). Paul Gauguin, The Painter of Sunflowers, 1888, Van Gogh Museum (public domain). Isaac Israëls, Portrait of Jo van Gogh-Bonger, 1925; photograph by Pachango (Niels from Amsterdam), CC BY-SA 2.0. Photographs: Vincent van Gogh, 1873 (J.M.W. de Louw), Theo van Gogh, 1878 (De Lavieter & Co), Jo van Gogh-Bonger with her family (unknown photographer), the graves at Auvers (Nationaal Archief) — all public domain. Auberge Ravoux, Auvers-sur-Oise: photograph by GFreihalter, CC BY-SA 4.0. Briefe an seinen Bruder (Paul Cassirer, Berlin, 1914), cover and title page, public domain. Music (CC0 / public-domain recordings via Wikimedia Commons): J. S. Bach, Goldberg Variations: Aria and Aria da capo, and Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1: Preludes No. 8 in E-flat minor, No. 9 in E major, No. 13 in F-sharp major, No. 17 in A-flat major and No. 24 in B minor, performed by Kimiko Ishizaka (Open Goldberg Variations / Open Well-Tempered Clavier, CC0). Erik Satie, Gnossienne No. 2, performed by La Pianista (public domain). Narration: AI voice (Speechify). #VanGogh #ArtHistory #StarryNight