Vincent van Gogh

Born

1853 · Groot-Zundert, Netherlands

Roots

Dutch; a village pastor's family

Family

Middle class

His father was a Protestant minister; art-dealer uncles placed him in the trade at sixteen.

Education

Left school at 15; apprenticed to the Goupil art dealership

Started with

A brother's allowance

Theo's monthly support funded nearly the entire ten-year painting life.

Affiliations & societies

None documented.

Information only — claims like these are often unverifiable and may be wrong.

The pathway

1. 1876 · age 23
   Fired from the art trade

   Then a failed teacher and a missionary in the Borinage coalfields, dismissed for giving his belongings away.

2. 1880 · age 27
   Decides to paint

   Theo begins the allowance that sustains him; over 650 letters between the brothers survive.

3. 1885 · age 32
   The Potato Eaters

   The dark Dutch years' summary work; Paris and color come the next year.

4. 1888 · age 35
   Arles

   The Yellow House, the sunflowers, Gauguin's visit — and, in December, the severed ear.

5. 1889 · age 36
   Saint-Rémy asylum

   Paints The Starry Night from his window as a voluntary patient.

6. 1890 · age 37
   Dies at Auvers

   Seventy paintings in his last seventy days; one confirmed sale in his lifetime. Theo's widow Jo spends decades building his fame from the letters.