Vincent van Gogh was born on 30 March 1853. He worked for the art dealers Goupil & Cie, spent time as a Protestant missionary in southern Belgium, and took up painting in 1881. His younger brother Theo supported him financially, and the two kept up a long correspondence by letter.
He was unsuccessful during his lifetime, yet in just over a decade he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. He is now among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. He died on 29 July 1890, two days after shooting himself.