Nationality: Dutch

Birthdate: 30 March 1853

Date of Death: 29 July 1890

GMC Ranking: 2

Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. His work includes landscapes, still life, portraits, and self-portraits, most of which are characterized by bold colors and dramatic brushwork that contributed to the rise of Expressionism in Modern art. Van Gogh's work was beginning to gain critical attention before he died from a self-inflicted gunshot at age 37. During his lifetime, only one of van Gogh's paintings, The Red Vineyard, was sold.

Van Gogh's work began to attract critical artistic attention in the last year of his life. After his death, van Gogh's art and life story captured public imagination as an emblem of misunderstood genius, due in large part to the efforts of his widowed sister-in-law Johanna van Gogh-Bonger. His bold use of color, expressive line and thick application of paint inspired avant-garde artistic groups like the Fauves and German Expressionists in the early 20th century. Van Gogh's work gained widespread critical and commercial success in the following decades, and he has become a lasting icon of the romantic ideal of the tortured artist. Today, van Gogh's artworks are among the world's most expensive paintings ever sold. His legacy is honored and celebrated by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which holds the world's largest collection of his paintings and drawings.