49 Fun Facts About Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh was born on 30 March 1853 in which village in the Dutch province of North Brabant?

Van Gogh was born in Zundert, in the largely Catholic province of North Brabant, where his father was a Protestant minister; Ossip Zadkine's sculpture of Vincent and Theo now marks the spot.

Roughly how many artworks did Van Gogh produce in just over a decade as an artist?

Van Gogh produced about 2,100 artworks, around 860 of them oil paintings, most in the last two years of his life; he took up art seriously at 27 and died at 37.

How long after shooting himself on 27 July 1890 did Van Gogh die?

He died two days later, on 29 July 1890, in his rented room at Auvers; he had walked back with the bullet inside him, smoked his pipe, and talked with Theo, who arrived the next day.

Van Gogh's younger brother Theo bankrolled him for most of his career. What was Theo's profession?

Theo worked in Paris for the same firm that had employed Vincent as a young man, and it was Theo who introduced him to the Impressionists and their dealers.

Which ear did Van Gogh partly sever with a razor in December 1888?

It was his left ear; on the night of 23 December 1888 he wrapped the severed piece in paper and delivered it to a woman at a brothel in Arles, then was found unconscious at home.

In May 1889 Van Gogh committed himself to an asylum just outside which Provençal town?

The asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole lies just outside Saint-Rémy-de-Provence; he had two cells, one to sleep in and one as a studio, and painted around 150 canvases there, including The Starry Night.

What kind of medicine did Dr Paul Gachet, who cared for Van Gogh at Auvers, practise?

Gachet practised homoeopathy and was also an amateur painter and etcher who befriended Cézanne and Pissarro; Vincent wrote to Theo that the doctor seemed 'sicker than I am'.

In 1869, aged 16, Van Gogh got his first job through his uncle Cent. What was the firm?

He did well and was sent to the London branch, where he was happy until an unrequited infatuation with his landlady's daughter set off the first of his crises.

In 1879 Van Gogh worked as a lay missionary in which Belgian coal-mining region?

The Borinage, a coal-mining district near Mons, is where Van Gogh preached in 1879; he gave away his possessions and slept on straw, and church authorities dismissed him for excessive zeal.

In which Dutch village, where his father was pastor, did Van Gogh paint The Potato Eaters in 1885?

The Potato Eaters was painted in Nuenen in April 1885; Van Gogh wanted the peasants' faces to look as if painted with earth and was furious when Anthon van Rappard criticised the figures' anatomy.

Van Gogh moved to Paris in March 1886 and shared Theo's apartment in which district?

Theo's flat was in Montmartre, from June 1886 at 54 rue Lepic; Vincent studied at Fernand Cormon's studio, met Toulouse-Lautrec and Émile Bernard, and his palette shifted from Dutch browns to bright Impressionist colour.

Which artist took Van Gogh on as a student in The Hague and introduced him to watercolour?

Their friendship broke down within months, partly over Vincent's decision to live with a pregnant prostitute, Sien Hoornik. He later dedicated a pink orchard painting to Mauve's memory.

Roughly how many letters from Vincent to Theo survive?

More than 600 letters from Vincent to Theo survive (about 650), against only about 40 of Theo's replies; Theo's widow Johanna arranged their publication, which did as much as the paintings to build the legend.

Van Gogh collected cheap woodblock prints from which country and copied their style?

They were Japanese ukiyo-e prints, bought cheaply in the Antwerp docklands and shown at the Café du Tambourin in Paris in 1887; he made painted copies of Hiroshige's Plum Orchard and Bridge in the Rain.

Apart from Theo, which sibling was the only one Van Gogh stayed in touch with in later life?

Willemina outlived him by more than 50 years, most of them in a psychiatric institution. His brother Cor died in the Boer War in South Africa.

Which planet is the brightest 'star' in The Starry Night (June 1889)?

Astronomers have confirmed that Venus really was blazing in the eastern pre-dawn sky over Provence that month. The village below, though, was added from imagination.

Since 1941 The Starry Night has hung where?

The Starry Night entered the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1941 through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest; Van Gogh himself called it a failure, telling Émile Bernard he had reached for stars that were 'too big'.

Van Gogh painted his Arles Sunflowers in August 1888 to decorate which part of the Yellow House?

He worked at speed because the flowers wilted fast, and hoped a wall of them would make Gauguin feel welcome. Gauguin later asked to be given one and Vincent refused.

Who bought a Sunflowers canvas for a record price at Christie's London in March 1987?

Yasuo Goto, chairman of Japanese insurer Yasuda Fire & Marine, paid £24.75 million (about $39.9 million), more than triple the previous auction record for any painting; the canvas went to Tokyo's Sompo Museum of Art.

What happened to the Sunflowers version known as Vase with Five Sunflowers on 6 August 1945?

It belonged to a private collector in Ashiya, and burned the same day the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima, though in a separate conventional raid. Only photographs of it survive.

How many authentic versions of Bedroom in Arles did Van Gogh paint?

There are three versions, told apart by the little pictures on the right-hand wall; they hang in Amsterdam, Chicago and Paris and were reunited for the Art Institute of Chicago's 2016 show.

Where in the Netherlands is Van Gogh's Café Terrace at Night (1888) held?

It belongs to the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, home of the second-largest Van Gogh collection; he never signed the canvas but described it in letters, and the café on Arles' Place du Forum was later repainted yellow to match.

Which work did 2020 research name Van Gogh's final painting, not Wheatfield with Crows?

Tree Roots: in 2020 Wouter van der Veen matched its tangle of roots to a roadside bank in Auvers shown on a 1905 postcard and concluded Van Gogh was painting it on the day he was shot.

Roughly what did Ryoei Saito pay for Portrait of Dr Gachet at auction in 1990?

Saito caused an outcry by saying he would have the picture cremated with him. He didn't; it was quietly sold after his death and its current whereabouts are unknown.

Which plant lies on the table in Portrait of Dr Gachet, a nod to the doctor's trade?

Digitalis, extracted from the plant, was a heart medicine. Some have argued Van Gogh took it and that it explains the yellow tint of his late work, though there is no record he was ever prescribed it.

Why does the 1889 Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear show the bandage on the uninjured side?

He painted his reflection in a mirror, so the bandaged left ear appears on the right; behind him hangs the Japanese print Geishas in a Landscape, and the painting belongs to the Courtauld Gallery in London.

Van Gogh's Irises, painted in the asylum garden in 1889, has hung where since 1990?

It briefly held the auction record in 1987 at $53.9 million, but the buyer, Alan Bond, could not pay in full, and Sotheby's had to take it back before the Getty stepped in.

Van Gogh's The Night Café (1888) belongs to which Ivy League university?

Yale University Art Gallery received it in Stephen Clark's 1961 bequest; it came from Ivan Morozov's Moscow collection, nationalised by the Soviets and sold in 1933, and a Morozov descendant's claim to it was finally rejected in 2016.

Which two colours did Van Gogh say expressed 'the terrible passions of humanity' in The Night Café?

Red and green: he told Theo he had tried to express 'the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green', in a café where one could ruin oneself, go mad or commit a crime.

Almond Blossom (1890), the branches against a blue sky, was painted to celebrate what?

The baby was named Vincent Willem after him. Theo's widow kept the painting over the child's cot, and it later became one of the founding works of the Van Gogh Museum.

In what year did the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam open its doors?

The museum opened in June 1973 on the Museumplein, beside the Rijksmuseum and Stedelijk; it holds over 200 of his paintings and around 500 drawings, the largest Van Gogh collection anywhere.

How soon were twenty paintings stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in 1991 recovered?

They were found about 35 minutes later, abandoned in a car near the museum after the getaway failed; the 2002 theft of two early works was less lucky, and those took 14 years to turn up in Italy.

Which crime organisation's member owned the villa near Naples where two stolen Van Goghs were recovered in 2016?

The Camorra: Italy's Guardia di Finanza found the two early works, from Nuenen and Scheveningen, in a villa at Castellammare di Stabia owned by Camorra-linked drug trafficker Raffaele Imperiale.

Roughly how many hand-painted oil frames does the 2017 film Loving Vincent contain?

Loving Vincent contains about 65,000 painted frames, made by a team of around 125 painters working in Van Gogh's style; it was nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar and lost to Pixar's Coco.

Who played Van Gogh in the 1956 biopic Lust for Life, based on Irving Stone's novel?

Douglas bore a striking resemblance to the artist's self-portraits and was Oscar-nominated for the role. Director Vincente Minnelli shot on location in Arles and Auvers.

Who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for playing Paul Gauguin in Lust for Life?

Anthony Quinn is on screen for about eight minutes, one of the shortest performances ever to win an acting Oscar; it was his second Best Supporting Actor award after Viva Zapata! (1952).

Don McLean's Van Gogh tribute 'Vincent' first appeared on which album?

It appeared on American Pie (1971), alongside the eight-and-a-half-minute title track; McLean wrote it after reading a Van Gogh biography, and the Van Gogh Museum played it daily for years.

How long did Paul Gauguin live and paint alongside Van Gogh at the Yellow House in Arles in autumn 1888?

Gauguin arrived on 23 October 1888 and left around 26 December, about nine weeks later; Theo had paid for him to go, the stay ended with the ear incident, and the two never met again.

In which year was Theo van Gogh's body moved from Utrecht to lie beside Vincent at Auvers-sur-Oise?

Johanna had Theo reburied beside Vincent in 1914, the year she also published the letters; the two graves lie under a single blanket of ivy, reportedly grown from a cutting from Dr Gachet's garden.

Who bought The Red Vineyard, the only painting Van Gogh sold by name in his lifetime, in 1890?

Boch was the sister of Eugène Boch, whose portrait Vincent had painted. The picture later entered Ivan Morozov's collection and now hangs in Moscow's Pushkin Museum.

The Kröller-Müller Museum, with the second-largest Van Gogh collection, sits in which Dutch national park?

It stands inside De Hoge Veluwe National Park, reached on the park's free white bicycles; Helene Kröller-Müller began buying Van Goghs in 1908, when they were cheap, and gave her collection to the Dutch state in 1935.

In which Auvers-sur-Oise inn did Van Gogh die in his rented room?

He died in attic room 5 of the Auberge Ravoux, kept empty ever since because a room where a suicide occurred could not be let again; his reported last words were 'the sadness will last forever'.

Starry Night Over the Rhône, painted in Arles in September 1888, hangs in which Paris museum?

It hangs in the Musée d'Orsay, showing the gas lamps of Arles reflected in the river under the Great Bear; it was shown at the Salon des Indépendants in 1889, a rare public exhibition in his lifetime.

In October 2022, Just Stop Oil protesters attacked Van Gogh's Sunflowers in London with what?

They threw two tins of Heinz tomato soup over the glazed painting at the National Gallery, leaving the canvas undamaged but the frame with about £10,000 of damage; the pair were later jailed for two years and 20 months.

Which philanthropist funded the Met's $57m purchase of a Wheat Field with Cypresses in 1993?

Walter Annenberg gave the Met $57 million to buy the June 1889 version in 1993; Van Gogh called the cypress 'as beautiful in line and proportion as an Egyptian obelisk' and painted the field three times.

What was the trade of Père Tanguy, whom Van Gogh painted three times in Paris?

Julien 'Père' Tanguy ground and sold paints from his shop on rue Clauzel, taking canvases from penniless artists in exchange for supplies; the 1887 portrait, backed by Japanese prints, was later bought by Rodin and hangs in the Musée Rodin.

In Van Gogh's Chair (1888), a rustic straw-seated chair on a tiled floor, what sits on the seat?

His pipe and tobacco pouch lie on the straw seat, with a box of sprouting onions behind; its pendant, Paul Gauguin's Armchair, shows a grander chair by night with a lit candle and novels, in reds and greens.

Which French painter of peasant life did Van Gogh revere and copy repeatedly, including his sower?

Van Gogh made more than 20 painted copies after Millet while in the asylum, working from black-and-white prints and inventing the colour himself.

What did Dr Félix Rey do with the portrait Van Gogh painted of him in Arles?

Rey disliked the portrait and gave it away; his family reportedly used it to patch a chicken coop before it was sold, and it later entered Sergei Shchukin's collection and hangs in Moscow's Pushkin Museum.