Great portraits from all stages of van Gogh's life, with essays which focus on particular groups of work and van Gogh's aims and methods.

"Each work is reproduced and set in context by leading scholars. Individually, their essays focus on particular groups of work, shedding new light on van Gogh's aims and methods. Collectively, they establish the centrality of portraiture to his oeuvre."--BOOK JACKET.

A beautifully produced gift book for gardeners and art lovers everywhere: a selection of Vincent van Gogh’s garden and flower paintings and drawings. Vincent van Gogh never owned a garden, but throughout his career he painted and drew outdoor spaces and natural objects frequently, both fascinated and stimulated by each location’s unique character. In this book Ralph Skea surveys the gardens that were most dear to Van Gogh—from the domestic havens of parsonage gardens in the Netherlands to the romance of Parisian city parks, from the blazing flower beds of Provence to the asylum gardens that provided the artist with seclusion and calm in his final months. Whether joyous paintings of plants in bloom or the intensely beautiful studies of lilacs, roses, irises, and pine trees that he produced in the asylum at Saint-Rémy, all the oils and sketches included here are monuments to the artist’s originality and poetic sensibility.

This is the story of one of the world’s most iconic images. Martin Bailey explains why Van Gogh painted a series of sunflower still lifes in Provence. He then explores the subsequent adventures of the seven pictures, and their influence on modern art. Through the Sunflowers, we gain fresh insights into Van Gogh’s life and his path to fame. Based on original research, the book is packed with discoveries – throwing new light on the legendary artist.

"Vincent van Gogh is one of the greatest figures in Western art. Revered for his bold, expressive paintings, he is also admired as a prodigious and eloquent letter writer. His correspondence displays a remarkable literary gift and an ability to communicate his ideas and feelings about nature, art and life in direct, emotive language." "Illustrated with works of art and letters that demonstrate Van Gogh's abiding preoccupations - the role of colour in painting, portraiture and the cycles of nature, for example - this fascinating book explores the correspondence as a self-portrait of the artist and the man. The letter-sketches that he used to describe completed works or those in progress are reproduced alongside the paintings or drawings on which they are based, providing a unique insight into his artistic development. Drawing on new and extensive research, leading authorities on Van Gogh reveal how the letters enhance and shape our view of this modern master." --Book Jacket.

The best-known and most sensational event in Vincent van Gogh’s life is also the least understood. For more than a century, biographers and historians seeking definitive facts about what happened on a December night in Arles have unearthed more questions than answers. Why would an artist at the height of his powers commit such a brutal act? Who was the mysterious “Rachel” to whom he presented his macabre gift? Did he use a razor or a knife? Was it just a segment—or did Van Gogh really lop off his entire ear? In Van Gogh’s Ear, Bernadette Murphy reveals, for the first time, the true story of this long-misunderstood incident, sweeping away decades of myth and giving us a glimpse of a troubled but brilliant artist at his breaking point. Murphy’s detective work takes her from Europe to the United States and back, from the holdings of major museums to the moldering contents of forgotten archives. She braids together her own thrilling journey of discovery with a narrative of Van Gogh’s life in Arles, the sleepy Provençal town where he created his finest work, and vividly reconstructs the world in which he moved—the madams and prostitutes, café patrons and police inspectors, shepherds and bohemian artists. We encounter Van Gogh’s brother and benefactor Theo, his guest and fellow painter Paul Gauguin, and many local subjects of Van Gogh’s paintings, some of whom Murphy identifies for the first time. Strikingly, Murphy uncovers previously unknown information about “Rachel”—and uses it to propose a bold new hypothesis about what was occurring in Van Gogh’s heart and mind as he made a mysterious delivery to her doorstep. As it reopens one of art history’s most famous cold cases, Van Gogh’s Ear becomes a fascinating work of detection. It is also a study of a painter creating his most iconic and revolutionary work, pushing himself ever closer to greatness even as he edged toward madness—and one fateful sweep of the blade that would resonate through the ages.

Starry Night is a fully illustrated account of Van Gogh's time at the asylum in Saint-Remy. Despite the challenges of ill health and asylum life, Van Gogh continued to produce a series of masterpieces – cypresses, wheatfields, olive groves and sunsets. He wrote very little about the asylum in letters to his brother Theo, so this book sets out to give an impression of daily life behind the walls of the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole and looks at Van Gogh through fresh eyes, with newly discovered material.