Gauguin's Chair by Vincent Van Gogh Postcard

Gauguin's Chair by Vincent Van Gogh, oil on canvas 1888, is a still life painting of a curved armchair with books and candle in the corner of a room. Van Gogh created the painting as part of a series of chair and sunflower paintings to decorate his Yellow House studio home in Arles, France, in which the painter Paul Gauguin also lived and worked with the hopes of establishing an artist colony. Painted in thick, bold coloured outlines in thick layers of impasto brushstrokes building flat areas of colour with an effect of stained glass, the painting shows the influence of Gauguin’s more cerebral, flattened style of Post-Impressionism that Vincent learned during the period of their close collaboration. Vincent Van Gogh (1853 - 1890) was a Dutch painter of the Post-Impressionist movement known for bold, expressive drawing, swirling brushstrokes and bold, heightened colours. In early adulthood Van Gogh worked as an art dealer, teacher and pastor before taking up the full time study of drawing and painting in his late twenties. Influenced by Rembrandt, the 19th century Realists and Barbizon school, Van Gogh’s early paintings featured studies of workers and peasants in sombre earth tones. Moving to France in 1886, Van Gogh met with the startling innovations of the Impressionist painters and began to apply their approach to colour and subject matter, which continued into the mature style for which the artist is most renowned. Van Gogh produced many hundreds of drawings and paintings including portraits, landscapes, still life and flower paintings, and numerous self-portraits that became a dominating influence on the modern art of the 20th century and made him one of the most popular artists of all time.