Co-published by Museum of Modern Art and the Van Gogh Museum in conjunction with the first exhibition to focus on Vincent van Gogh's depictions of nocturnal and twilight scenes, Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night examines the artist's night landscapes, interior scenes, and representations of the effects of both gaslight and natural light on their surroundings. It features over one hundred illustrations, including details of Van Gogh's iconic paintings and works by other artist important to the development of his style.

'This man will go insane or leave us all far behind', prophesied the great impressionist Camille Pissarro. The man was Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890), a vicar's son born at Groot-Zundert near Breda in Holland. Van Gogh was a solitary, despairing and self-destructive man and followed a variety of professions before becoming an artist. He craved recognition throughout his life which was denied until after his self-inflicted death. Today he is universally recognised as one of the great forerunners of 20th century painting, and one of the tragic masters of art. This study by the two leading experts - Reiner Metzer and Ingo F. Walther (who previously published the first ever "Complete paintings of Van Gogh") follows the artist from the early gloom-laden paintings in which he captured the misery of peasants and workers in his home province, through the bright and colourful paintings from his period in Paris, to the work of his final years under the southern sun in Arles, where at last he found the light that produced the unmistakable Van Gogh style. Bombarded by influences from every quarter, Van Gogh tried a number of approaches and techniques before leaving Arles in 1888. In search of a new style and in a feverish burst of creative energy that marked the last two and a half years of his life, he produced the 465 paintings on which his immortality rests.

The incarnation of the myth of a cursed artist, Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) is a legend who became a reference for modern art. An Expressionist during the Post-Impressionist movement, his art was misunderstood during his lifetime. In Holland, he partook in the Dutch realist painting movement by studying peasant characters. Anxious and depressed, Vincent van Gogh produced more than 2000 artworks, yet sold only one in his lifetime. A self-made artist, his work is known for its rough and emotional beauty and is amongst the most popular in the art market today.

The general outlines of Vincent van Gogh’s life—the early difficulties in Holland and Paris, the revelatory impact of the move to Provence, the attacks of madness and despair that led to his suicide—are almost as familiar as his paintings. Yet neither the paintings nor Van Gogh’s story might have survived at all had it not been for his sister-in-law, the teacher, translator, and socialist Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Jo married the painter’s brother, Theo, in 1889, and over the next two years lived through the deaths of both Vincent and her new husband. Left with an infant son, she inherited little save a cache of several hundred paintings and an enormous archive of letters. Advised to consign these materials to an attic, she instead dedicated her life to making them known. Over the next three decades she tirelessly promoted Vincent’s art, organizing major exhibitions and compiling and editing the correspondence, the first edition of which included, as a preface, her account of Van Gogh’s life. This short biography, written from a vantage point of familial intimacy, affords a revealing and, at times, heartbreaking testimony to the painter’s perilous life. An introduction by the art critic and scholar Martin Gayford provides an insightful discussion of the author’s relationship with the Van Goghs, while abundant color illustrations throughout the book trace the development of the painter’s signature style.