Vincent van Gogh (Russell painting) Vincent van Gogh" (1887) and Paul Gauguin's "The Painter of Sunflowers" (1888). Van Gogh seems to have been particularly attached to Russell's portrait, which the Australian gifted to him as a mark of their friendship. The painting passed from Van Gogh to his brother Theo, then to their family, and is now in the permanent collection of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Russell was born into a wealthy engineering family in 1858 in Sydney, New South Wales. The family business, P.N. Russell & Co, was responsible for much of the city's 19th-century ironwork. Although Russell had a strong interest
Paintings of Children (Van Gogh series) to painting of peasants Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo: "How shall I ever manage to paint what I love so much?" This was a decided transition in approach to paintings from his earlier works influenced by Dutch masters, such as Rembrandt. His goal at that time was to paint them as he saw them and based upon his emotional response to them. His early works of peasants were in muted tones. As he was influenced by Impressionism and the use of complementary colors, his style changed dramatically. As much as Van Gogh liked to paint portraits of people,