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) from the gray colors of his art and life, moving away from Nuenen to develop, as author Albert Lubin describes, a more "imaginative, colorful art that suited him much better." In 1886, Van Gogh left the Netherlands never to return. He moved to Paris to live with his brother Theo, a Parisian art dealer. Van Gogh entered Paris as a shy, somber man. While his personality would never change, he emerged artistically into what one critic described as a "singing bird". Although Van Gogh had been influenced by his cousin Anton Mauve and the Hague School, as well as the