Van Gogh Biography: 900 Paintings, 1 Painting Sold, 902 Letters — The Complete Art History Guide

Last updated: May 2026 · By Stanislav Arnautov · Berlin

Vincent Willem van Gogh (Zundert, North Brabant, Netherlands, 30 March 1853 – Auvers-sur-Oise, France, 29 July 1890) died at 37 years old, having practised as a professional painter for exactly 10 years (he began painting seriously in 1880, at age 27, after failing as an art dealer, a teacher, and a lay preacher). In those 10 years he produced approximately 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings — approximately 2 works per week across a decade of sustained practice, in conditions that included poverty, malnutrition, psychiatric institutionalisation, and lead poisoning from his paint materials. He sold exactly one painting during his lifetime. He is now the most famous painter in history by most measurable criteria: his works hold the third, fourth, and fifth highest auction prices ever recorded for a work of art, and the Starry Night (1889, Museum of Modern Art New York) is the most visited single work in MoMA's collection. DeckArts Berlin reproduces Van Gogh's most significant works on Grade-A Canadian maple from approximately $140, shipping from Berlin.

One Painting Sold: The Red Vineyard and Anna Boch

Vincent van Gogh sold exactly one painting during his lifetime. The painting was The Red Vineyard (November 1888, oil on canvas, 75 × 93 cm, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts Moscow), a depiction of the Montmajour vineyards near Arles at harvest time, with workers gathering grapes under a red-orange sunset sky. The buyer was Anna Boch (1848–1936), a Belgian Symbolist painter and member of the Les Vingt (The Twenty) artists' group in Brussels, which Van Gogh had exhibited with at the invitation of her brother Émile Boch. The sale took place at the Les Vingt annual exhibition in Brussels in January 1890, approximately six months before Van Gogh's death. The price was 400 Belgian francs — approximately €2,000–2,500 in 2026 purchasing power.

The Red Vineyard was one of the works Van Gogh exhibited at the Les Vingt show, alongside six other paintings. A review in the Belgian avant-garde journal L'Art Moderne praised the exhibited works: the critic Albert Aurier had published his famous appreciation of Van Gogh's work in the Mercure de France the same month (January 1890), the first major critical recognition Van Gogh received in his lifetime. He read Aurier's article at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy, where he was confined, and wrote to thank Aurier directly — characteristically arguing that the praise was excessive and belonged more properly to Paul Gauguin and Claude Monet. By the time the Red Vineyard sale was completed, Van Gogh had five months left to live.

The Red Vineyard entered various collections after Anna Boch's ownership and was ultimately purchased by the Russian collector Sergei Shchukin in 1908, who later donated his collection to the Russian state. It entered the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, where it has been held since 1948. The painting has never been sold at public auction since the original 400-franc sale; its current institutional valuation is not publicly disclosed.

900 Paintings in 10 Years: The Production Rate

Van Gogh's production rate of approximately 900 paintings in 10 years — approximately 90 paintings per year, or approximately 1.7 per week — is among the highest sustained production rates of any canonical Western painter. For comparison: Vermeer produced approximately 1.4 paintings per year; Leonardo da Vinci produced approximately 0.7 per year; Rembrandt produced approximately 7 per year. Van Gogh's rate exceeds Rembrandt's by a factor of approximately 12, exceeds Leonardo's by a factor of approximately 130, and exceeds Vermeer's by a factor of approximately 60.

The production rate accelerated toward the end of his life. In the final 70 days at Auvers-sur-Oise (May–July 1890), Van Gogh produced approximately 80 paintings — approximately 1.1 paintings per day. This rate is so extreme that it has led some art historians to question whether all works attributed to the Auvers period are authentic Van Goghs; the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam's authentication committee has examined each Auvers attribution individually and the majority are accepted.

The physical conditions of Van Gogh's production were extreme. He often worked outdoors in the Arles heat (summer temperatures regularly exceeding 35°C), sometimes anchoring his easel with ropes and tent pegs to prevent the mistral wind from overturning it. He was chronically underfed — his brother Theo sent 150 francs per month, of which Van Gogh spent approximately 100 francs on paint, canvas, and materials, leaving approximately 50 francs for food and accommodation. His diet during the Arles period consisted primarily of bread, coffee, alcohol, and occasional restaurant meals. Letters to Theo document multiple periods in which he did not eat for 2–3 days consecutively because he had spent the food money on cadmium yellow and chromium orange.

902 Letters to Theo: The Most Extensive Artist Archive in History

Van Gogh wrote 902 surviving letters to his brother Theo van Gogh (1857–1891) between 1872 and 1890 — a correspondence that constitutes the most extensive written record of a visual artist's working process, aesthetic philosophy, reading habits, and daily life in the history of Western art. The letters, written in Dutch, French, and English across the 18-year correspondence, were preserved by Theo's wife Jo van Gogh-Bonger (1862–1925) after both Vincent and Theo's deaths (Theo died six months after Vincent, in January 1891, from a syphilis-related illness). Jo van Gogh-Bonger edited and published the first Dutch edition of the letters in 1914; subsequent editions in English (1958), French (1960), and other languages followed. The complete critical edition — including all 819 letters from Vincent to Theo, 83 letters from Theo to Vincent, and additional letters to other correspondents — was published by the Van Gogh Museum in 2009 and is available in full on the Van Gogh Museum's website at vangoghletters.org.

The letters document every aspect of Van Gogh's artistic practice: the specific pigments he used and why, the paintings he had seen in galleries and museums, the books he was reading (Dickens, Zola, Maupassant, Hugo, Harriet Beecher Stowe, George Eliot), the painters he admired (Millet, Delacroix, Rembrandt, the Japanese woodblock print masters), the paintings he was currently working on, his financial situation, his mental health, his diet, his relationships, and his theoretical understanding of colour and composition. The letters are simultaneously the most intimate personal document of the 19th century, a comprehensive archive of late 19th-century artistic life in Paris, Antwerp, and southern France, and the most detailed account of a painter's working process available for any artist of comparable historical significance.

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam — which holds the largest collection of Van Gogh's works globally (over 200 paintings, 500 drawings, and the complete letter archive) — has made the complete letters searchable online at vangoghletters.org, where any letter can be accessed by date, location, correspondent, or text search. The letter archive is one of the most important primary sources in the history of art and is cited in virtually every significant Van Gogh scholarly publication.

The Yellow House and Gauguin: 63 Days That Changed Art History

Van Gogh arrived in Arles in the south of France in February 1888, renting a four-room house at 2 Place Lamartine (known as the Yellow House because of its ochre-yellow exterior paint) with the intention of establishing a community of artists — the Studio of the South — where painters could work collaboratively in the brilliant southern light, reducing expenses by living together. He wrote to approximately a dozen painters inviting them to join; Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) was the only one who agreed. Gauguin arrived on 23 October 1888 after months of delay that Van Gogh filled by painting the Sunflowers series to decorate Gauguin's room and writing increasingly anxious letters about the project.

The cohabitation lasted exactly 63 days, from 23 October to 24 December 1888. The two painters worked together intensively during this period — Gauguin painting from imagination and memory in his Post-Impressionist manner; Van Gogh working from direct observation in the Arles landscape. They argued frequently and intensely about artistic method, colour theory, and the proper subjects for painting. Gauguin's letters to friends during the period describe Van Gogh as mentally unstable; Van Gogh's letters to Theo describe Gauguin as a domineering personality who undermined his confidence. Both characterisations contain some truth.

The period produced some of Van Gogh's most significant works: the Bedroom in Arles (October 1888, Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam and Art Institute Chicago), the Night Café (September 1888, Yale University Art Gallery), and multiple Arles landscape paintings. Gauguin produced Vision After the Sermon (1888, National Galleries of Scotland Edinburgh) and other major works during the same period. The 63 days of cohabitation — the only sustained period of collaborative proximity in the careers of two of the most significant Post-Impressionist painters — ended on 23 December 1888, when Van Gogh cut part of his left ear and presented it to a woman at a local brothel. Gauguin left Arles on 26 December and never saw Van Gogh again.

The Ear: What Actually Happened and Why It Was Not Romantic

The events of 23 December 1888 are documented in police records, hospital records, a letter from Gauguin to the writer Emile Bernard, and Van Gogh's own subsequent letters. The factual sequence: Van Gogh and Gauguin argued in the evening; Gauguin left the Yellow House and walked to a nearby hotel; Van Gogh followed him with a razor; Gauguin faced him down and Van Gogh retreated; Van Gogh returned to the Yellow House and cut off the lower part of his left ear with a razor; he wrapped the ear fragment in newspaper, walked to the local brothel, and gave it to a woman there named Rachel (not a woman named Gabrielle as earlier sources reported — this correction was established by art historians Martin Bailey and Hans Kaufmann and Rita Wildegans in 2016 research). Van Gogh returned to the Yellow House, went to bed, was found the following morning by police in serious condition, and was hospitalised at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in Arles.

The episode was not romantically motivated. The most widely accepted current interpretation — supported by the letters' documentation of Van Gogh's mental state in the weeks before the incident — is that Van Gogh experienced a psychotic episode during the argument with Gauguin, probably triggered by chronic stress, malnutrition, alcohol consumption (he had been drinking heavily during the Arles period), and possible lead poisoning from his paint materials. The ear incident was a symptom of mental illness, not a romantic gesture. Van Gogh spent approximately two weeks in the Arles hospital recovering from blood loss and psychological crisis. He returned briefly to the Yellow House in January 1889, then voluntarily committed himself to the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy in May 1889.

Saint-Rémy: The Asylum Paintings and the Starry Night

Van Gogh spent approximately one year (May 1889 – May 1890) at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, a former monastery converted to a psychiatric hospital. He voluntarily admitted himself after a second psychotic episode in January 1889 had convinced him that he could not manage his mental health without institutional support. At Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, he was given a room with an east-facing window and an adjacent room as a studio, and he was permitted to paint on most days when he was not in crisis.

The Saint-Rémy period produced approximately 150 paintings and 100 drawings — including the Starry Night (June 1889, Museum of Modern Art New York), the Irises (May 1889, J. Paul Getty Museum Los Angeles), multiple versions of his Bedroom at Arles copied from memory (Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam, Art Institute of Chicago, Musée d'Orsay Paris), and the series of Olive Trees and Cypresses. The Starry Night was painted from the east-facing window of his room at the asylum, depicting the night sky over Saint-Rémy with the stylised spiral swirls that are now the most recognisable feature of his mature style. Van Gogh wrote to Theo about the Starry Night without particular enthusiasm: he considered his daytime olive tree paintings more successful than the nocturnal compositions. The painting's eventual status as the most visited work in MoMA would have surprised him.

Auvers-sur-Oise: The Final 70 Days and 80 Paintings

Van Gogh left Saint-Rémy in May 1890 and moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, a village approximately 30 km north of Paris, where the physician Dr Paul Gachet (1828–1909) — recommended by Camille Pissarro — had agreed to monitor his mental health. Auvers was an established artists' colony; Charles-François Daubigny, Camille Corot, and Paul Cézanne had all worked there. Van Gogh arrived on 20 May 1890 and rented a room at the Auberge Ravoux (Place de la Mairie, Auvers — still open as a restaurant in 2026, with Van Gogh's room preserved).

In 70 days, Van Gogh produced approximately 80 paintings — including Wheatfield with Crows (July 1890, Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam, 50.5 × 103 cm), Portrait of Dr Gachet (June 1890, private collection — sold Christie's 1990 for $82.5 million, then a world record), the Church at Auvers (June 1890, Musée d'Orsay Paris), and multiple landscape paintings of the Auvers fields and gardens. On 27 July 1890, Van Gogh went into the Auvers fields and shot himself in the chest with a revolver. He was found by two local boys, returned to the Auberge Ravoux, and died approximately 29 hours later, at 1:30 AM on 29 July 1890, with Theo present. He was 37 years old. Theo died six months later, in January 1891. The brothers are buried side by side in the municipal cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise.

Van Gogh at Auction: From 400 Francs to $149 Million

Van Gogh's auction trajectory is the most extreme value appreciation in the history of Western art market. Starting from the single 400-franc sale during his lifetime, his works have achieved the following significant auction results:

The Portrait of Dr Gachet (June 1890, private collection) has one of the most controversial ownership histories in auction history. Ryoei Saito, the Japanese paper magnate who paid $82.5 million for it at Christie's New York in May 1990 (setting a world record that stood until 1997), subsequently announced in a press conference that he intended to have the painting cremated with him upon his death. The statement caused international outrage; Saito clarified that he had been speaking figuratively. He died in 1996; the painting was sold from his estate through private treaty and its current location has not been publicly disclosed by its owner.

Chrome Yellow and Toxic Pigments: The Palette That Damaged Him

Van Gogh's palette included several pigments that are now known to be toxic and whose chronic exposure is documented to cause neurological symptoms: chrome yellow (lead chromate, PbCrO₄), emerald green (copper acetoarsenite, Cu(C₂H₃O₂)₂·3Cu(AsO₂)₂), lead white (basic lead carbonate, 2PbCO₃·Pb(OH)₂), and vermilion (mercuric sulphide, HgS). Van Gogh's paint-handling practice was documented as particularly hazardous: he frequently tasted paint directly from tubes (a common 19th-century habit for testing consistency), mixed paint with his fingers, and cleaned his brushes by rubbing them across his palm rather than using a rag.

Chrome yellow in particular has been proposed by multiple scholars as a contributing factor to Van Gogh's neurological symptoms. Lead chromate causes acute lead poisoning (from the lead component) and hexavalent chromium toxicity (from the chromate component). Hexavalent chromium is a known carcinogen; its neurological effects include anxiety, cognitive impairment, and psychological disturbance. Van Gogh's documented symptoms — episodic psychotic crises, periods of extreme anxiety, visual disturbances, and the cyclical pattern of his illness — are consistent with the effects of chronic lead and hexavalent chromium exposure. The hypothesis that toxic paint exposure contributed to his mental illness alongside an underlying psychiatric condition (possibly temporal lobe epilepsy, bipolar disorder, or both, depending on the scholar) has not been definitively confirmed but remains the subject of medical historical scholarship.

The specific visual quality of Van Gogh's paintings — the luminous warmth of the Sunflowers, the swirling chromatic intensity of the Starry Night, the heavy impasto texture of the Arles and Saint-Rémy works — is partly a consequence of his palette's pigment density and opacity. Chrome yellow is one of the most saturated and most opaque yellows available in 19th-century oil painting; its warm luminosity under warm light is unmatched by alternative yellow pigments. On Canadian maple, the warm amber grain beneath the UV archival print amplifies the warm spectrum of Van Gogh's chrome yellow palette in the same way that the warm linen canvas ground amplified it in the original paintings: a warm undertone that enriches the warm pigment zones without flattening them.

FAQ

How many paintings did Van Gogh sell?

Vincent van Gogh sold exactly one painting during his lifetime: The Red Vineyard (November 1888, oil on canvas, 75 × 93 cm, now Pushkin Museum Moscow) for 400 Belgian francs (approximately €2,000–2,500 in 2026 value) to Belgian painter Anna Boch at the Les Vingt exhibition in Brussels in January 1890, approximately six months before his death. In the years since, his works have sold at auction for between $28 million and $149 million. The appreciation from 400 francs to $149 million represents one of the most extreme value trajectories in the history of the art market.

How many paintings did Van Gogh make?

Vincent van Gogh produced approximately 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings in 10 years of professional practice (1880–1890). This gives a production rate of approximately 90 paintings per year, or 1.7 per week — among the highest sustained rates in canonical Western painting history. In the final 70 days at Auvers-sur-Oise (May–July 1890), he produced approximately 80 paintings, approximately 1.1 per day. He died at 37 years old.

What happened to Van Gogh's ear?

On 23 December 1888, Vincent van Gogh cut off the lower portion of his left ear following an argument with Paul Gauguin, who had been living with him at the Yellow House in Arles for 63 days. Van Gogh wrapped the ear fragment in newspaper and gave it to a woman at a local brothel named Rachel (confirmed by 2016 research). He was hospitalised at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in Arles for two weeks. The episode was a symptom of a psychotic crisis, not a romantic gesture. Van Gogh voluntarily committed himself to the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy in May 1889.

How many letters did Van Gogh write to Theo?

Vincent van Gogh wrote 819 surviving letters to his brother Theo van Gogh between 1872 and 1890 — part of a 902-letter correspondence that constitutes the most extensive written record of a visual artist's working process in history. The letters, written in Dutch, French, and English, document Van Gogh's aesthetic philosophy, pigment choices, reading habits, mental health, and daily life across 18 years. The complete critical edition was published by the Van Gogh Museum in 2009 and is freely available online at vangoghletters.org.

How much are Van Gogh paintings worth?

Van Gogh paintings at public auction have achieved prices between approximately $28 million and $149 million in recent years. The Portrait of Dr Gachet (June 1890) sold at Christie's New York in May 1990 for $82.5 million (then a world record). The Peasant Woman Against a Background of Wheat (1890) sold at Christie's New York in June 2022 for $84.4 million. The single painting Van Gogh sold during his lifetime — The Red Vineyard — sold for 400 Belgian francs in January 1890. DeckArts reproduces Van Gogh's most significant works on Canadian maple from approximately $140, shipping from Berlin.

Article Summary

Vincent van Gogh (Zundert 30 March 1853 – Auvers-sur-Oise 29 July 1890) produced ~900 paintings and ~1,100 drawings in 10 years of practice (1880–1890). Sold one painting during his lifetime: The Red Vineyard (November 1888) for 400 Belgian francs (≈€2–2.5K in 2026) to Belgian painter Anna Boch at Les Vingt, Brussels, January 1890. 902 surviving letters to Theo (819 from Vincent) — most extensive artist archive in history, complete edition online at vangoghletters.org. Yellow House, Arles: Gauguin cohabitation 23 Oct–24 Dec 1888 (63 days); ear incident 23 Dec 1888 (psychotic episode, not romantic gesture; recipient confirmed as Rachel by 2016 research). Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum Saint-Rémy May 1889–May 1890: ~150 paintings including Starry Night (June 1889, MoMA New York). Auvers-sur-Oise 20 May–29 July 1890: ~80 paintings in 70 days. Shot 27 July; died 29 July 1890 age 37. Portrait of Dr Gachet sold Christie's 1990 for $82.5M (world record at time). Chrome yellow (lead chromate PbCrO₄): toxic neurological effects consistent with documented symptoms. DeckArts from ~$140, Canadian maple, UV archival 100+ years, Berlin, 30-day return.

About the Author

Stanislav Arnautov is the founder of DeckArts and a creative director originally from Ukraine, now based in Berlin.