Vincent van Gogh

Van Gogh began to draw as a child, although he did not start painting until his late twenties. He spent his early adulthood working as an art dealer in The Hague, London, and Paris, and briefly, as a teacher in England. He also had aspirations to become a pastor and worked as a missionary in Belgium, where he began painting peasant character studies. In 1886, Van Gogh moved to Paris and discovered French Impressionism. In 1888, he moved to the south of France, where he would complete his best-known works. Van Gogh never achieved recognition for his art in his lifetime. Plagued by depression and hallucinations, Van Gogh died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound at age 37.