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
Vincent van Gogh (Russell painting) in the possession of his widow, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, and then their son, William Vincent van Gogh. The portrait is now on permanent loan to Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum. Russell's portrait is unique among those of Van Gogh in that it is the only one by his contemporaries in which he makes direct eye contact with the viewer. Noting Van Gogh's sharp gaze, art critic Laura Cumming said Russell's portrait provides an "intimate and intense" encounter with the artist. In his 1939 autobiography, Hartrick called the portrait "an admirable likeness, more so than any of those by [Van Gogh] or