Adventures with Van Gogh
Adventures with Van Gogh is a weekly blog by Martin Bailey, our long-standing correspondent and expert on the artist. Published every Friday, his stories will range from newsy items about this most intriguing artist to scholarly pieces based on his own meticulous investigations and discoveries. © Martin Bailey
Why did Van Gogh fail to sell his work?
Although his paintings now fetch millions, during his lifetime he perhaps ended up pricing them too high
What lies behind the twisted forms of Van Gogh's mountain landscape at the Guggenheim in New York?
Vincent painted this powerful work just outside the walls of his asylum
The Marcos art mystery: with a new Philippines president, we ask what happened to the family's Van Gogh?
Ferdinand Marcos, the former president, and his wife Imelda owned one of Vincent’s peasant scenes. Did it end up in Japan?
Could one of these lost Van Goghs—which disappeared during the Nazi period—be hidden in your attic?
These five missing paintings might still survive—possibly looted and secreted away
A rare Van Gogh letter about the Sunflowers will go on display
Vincent’s note to his artist friend Emile Bernard is to be included in an exhibition of the Springer Collection at Madrid’s Thyssen Museum
The ten most expensive Vincent van Gogh paintings
Of course Sunflowers is included, along with some surprises—and another on the way
The story behind the exuberant spring landscape Van Gogh painted just weeks after slashing his ear
Peach Trees in Blossom was inspired by Vincent’s love of Japanese prints
New research aims to solve the two mysteries of Van Gogh’s landscape of poplars
Why did Vincent paint “Poplars near Nuenen” on top of an earlier picture of a church? And was the final picture touched up after he discovered Impressionism in Paris?
First details on the largest US exhibition of Van Gogh paintings for a generation
The show “Van Gogh in America” opens at the Detroit Institute of Arts in October
A Van Gogh letter is coming up for auction: €250,000 for a single sheet of paper
Vincent writes philosophically about his mental illness, a year after mutilating his ear
Discovered: Van Gogh’s fingerprint on an olive grove painting
The artist’s imprint was probably left when he carried the picture back to the asylum
Sunflowers: the symbol of Van Gogh—and Ukraine
Vincent’s beloved bloom will eventually flourish again in the war-torn country
Revisiting Van Gogh’s comments on the Crimean War—when the Russian emperor was defeated by the winter weather
Vincent declared that a cartoon in Punch magazine was greater than Holbein's Dance of Death
The London dealer who sacked his young assistant Van Gogh went on to sell his art
Christie’s uncovers records revealing that Obach & Co marketed a landscape drawing in 1910
Revealed: Van Gogh landscape once owned by Yves Saint Laurent coming up for sale, valued at $45m
Christie’s is to offer the never-exhibited painting in a New York auction in May
We know Van Gogh’s face from his self-portraits, but how did his friends see him?
Other views of Vincent, captured by his fellow artists, reproduced together online for the first time
Van Gogh’s depiction of two lovers—sliced out of a landscape painting—comes up for sale
Sotheby’s will auction the surviving picture of the strolling couple on 2 March, estimated at £7m-£10m
How did the only painting sold by Van Gogh in his lifetime end up in Russia?
Revelations about The Red Vineyard, just conserved at Moscow’s Pushkin Museum
London's Van Gogh self-portraits show is coming—here are my six favourite paintings
The Courtauld exhibition will be the first ever with works from Vincent’s full career, opening on 3 February
The mind-blowing Van Gogh gallery that never was
What happened to the 1923 plan for a Grand Museum to house the collection of Helene Kröller-Müller
New York’s Metropolitan Museum buys four extremely rare Van Gogh prints
Vincent wanted to sell the set for under a dollar as “art for the people”—the museum will have paid several million
Van Gogh back on the road: major exhibitions coming in 2022
With shows in London, Vienna, four American cities and of course Amsterdam—I choose the highlight of the year
What a year for Van Gogh: surprise discoveries, record prices and a boom in immersive experiences
From insects trapped in paint and Vincent's support of a brass band to the scene depicted in his final picture—plus it was suicide (not murder)
Van Gogh gets a facelift: conservation of self-portrait to be revealed in London
The Kröller-Müller Museum painting will be unveiled in the Courtauld Gallery’s exhibition
The secret behind Van Gogh’s satirical herring still life: they represent policemen
Vincent told his artist friend Paul Signac that the fish stood for the gendarmes who hassled him after he mutilated his ear
Revealed: Larry Ellison, the world’s seventh richest person, has collected at least four Van Goghs
The Oracle Corporation co-founder owns the painting that hung above J.F. Kennedy’s hotel bed on the morning of his assassination—and the president’s final telephone call was about Van Gogh
Van Gogh and friends: new show in Ohio puts Vincent alongside masters such as Rembrandt, Hokusai and Monet
But is it one exhibition or two? Surprisingly, Through Vincent’s Eyes: Van Gogh and His Sources will be quite different when it travels next year to California
Four Van Goghs go for $161m in one evening in New York—double their Christie’s estimates
For the artist who failed to sell during his lifetime, there is now a surge in the market for Vincent’s late paintings
The astonishing survival of the farmhouse depicted in Van Gogh’s newly unveiled watercolour
Vincent’s picture of wheatstacks is coming up at Christie’s on 11 November—yours for around $25m
Van Gogh’s favourite artists: how did they influence his own work?
Steven Naifeh, co-author of the best-selling biography, writes about the painters Vincent admired—and collects their pictures