Vincent van Gogh
As a self-taught artist with little formal training, lacking the sufficient funds to pay for professional models for his portraits, Vincent van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) began his career painting peasants in the fields of his native Netherlands. It was his brother Theo who supported Vincent financially for most of his life, with the painter only selling a single artwork during his lifetime, a piece entitled "The Red Vineyard". The two siblings shared a very close friendship, a bond well documented by the many letters written by Vincent to Theo, many containing preliminary sketches for his paintings.
To explore Vincent van Gogh's work beyond his most famous "Sunflowers" series, we invite you to browse this hand-picked selection from the akg-images archive.