Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh (Both "g"'s prononounced like "ch" in Loch) was born on March 30, 1853, in Zundert, Netherlands and died on July 29, 1890, in Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris, France. He is generally considered the greatest Dutch painter after Rembrandt, though he sold only one painting during his lifetime: (The Red Vineyard (1888). The painting is now on display in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, Russia. Van Gogh produced all of his work during a period of only 10 years before he succumbed to mental illness and committed suicide. His fame grew rapidly after his death.

Van Gogh's influence on expressionism, fauvism and early abstractino was enormous, and can be seen in many other aspects of 20th-century art. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is dedicated to the work of van Gogh and his contemporaries.