HOUSTON — The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston is set to host more than 50 portraits, landscapes, and still lifes created by Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890). Beginning March 10 and lasting through June 27, the Vincent van Gogh: His Life in Art exhibit is a chance for people living in the United States to view a large selection of works by the famed Post-Impressionist.

“Van Gogh exhibitions of this scope and ambition are rare, especially in the U.S.,” said David Bomford, curator of the exhibit. “They are more and more difficult to mount as major museums become increasingly reluctant to let their works travel. This is one of the only ones in recent years to cover the whole of his career.”

For this monumental undertaking to happen, The Museum of Fine Arts collaborated with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, which is a small village in the province of Gelderland in the Netherlands.

“These are the two greatest Van Gogh collections in the world, so it was immensely exciting discussing which of their works could come to Houston,” Bomford said. “Our colleagues in the two Dutch museums were wonderfully collaborative and helpful in making that survey possible.”

Although he’s one of the most famous artists in the world and his paintings have sold for millions of dollars at auction, Vincent van Gogh, born Vincent Willem van Gogh on March 30, 1853 in Groot-Zundert in Holland, was a poverty-stricken figure who died in obscurity in 1890 at the age of 37, having sold but a single painting in his lifetime.

After working a series of failed jobs, Van Gogh found painting to be his true passion when he was 27 years old. His early work was influenced by Rembrandt, but in 1886, he moved in with his beloved brother Theo in Paris, and discovered the French Impressionists, including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Edgar Degas. Through Theo, an art dealer, Vincent got to meet many important artists, including Paul Gauguin, Paul Cézanne, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Rousseau, Camille Pissarro, and Georges Seurat.

The Impressionists had a major impact on Vincent’s painting style, as did the brighter, warmer climate of Paris. Japanese art, particularly the prints, also played a role in shaping Van Gogh’s formative years as a painter.

In 1888, Vincent moved to Arles, Bouches-du-Rhône, in South France, renting a room in the famed Yellow House, Place Lamartine. While living in Arles, where he loved and frequently painted the local landscape, Van Gogh, a bohemian through and through, hoped to establish an art colony. Unfortunately, only Paul Gauguin responded to Van Gogh’s utopian dream.

Gauguin and Van Gogh admired one another’s work and quickly became friends. Gauguin moved in with Vincent, and the two of them frequently worked side by side, both indoors and outdoors. Regrettably, the living arrangement crumbled apart in less than three months, thanks to frequent arguing. Gauguin, a domineering sort, began to lose his affinity for and became highly critical of Impressionism, much to van Gogh’s dismay. Both artists were troubled emotionally, and Van Gogh’s addiction to absinthe during this time didn’t help matters.

The friction between Gauguin and Van Gogh purportedly reached its peak on Dec. 23, 1888 when Van Gogh threatened Gauguin with a razor blade (or so Gauguin claimed). Lucky for Gauguin, it was an empty (or at least unfulfilled) threat, and Vincent left in a panic and headed for a nearby brothel (the bedraggled, reclusive, half-starved Van Gogh sometimes sought companionship from local prostitutes). While there, Vincent, in a fit of madness, sliced off a portion of his ear, wrapped it in newspaper, and gave it to a prostitute named Rachel.

On May 8, 1889, Vincent committed himself into the asylum of St Paul-de-Mausole, near the small town of St Rémy-de-Provence. On July 27, 1890, he shot himself in the chest, dying 29 hours later at the age of 37.

During his short time on Earth, Van Gogh left an indelible mark on the world of art, influencing such painters as Francis Bacon, Gustav Klimt, Lee Tiller, Vitali Komrov, Stefan Duncan, and countless others. He also influenced the Abstract Expressionism movement of the 1940s and ’50s.

Van Gogh’s broad, thick, swirling, fever-pitched brush strokes gave a uniqueness, boldness, and lasting resonance to his work, which included such famous masterpieces as Bedroom in Arles (1888), Sunflowers (1888), The Starry Night (1889), Wheat Field with Cypresses (1889), and any number of portraits and self-portraits. Van Gogh’s brilliant use of color—rich blues, vivid greens, impossibly bright yellows—was particularly striking, helping lend emotional depth to his paintings.

Vincent van Gogh: His Life in Art features a number of works produced late in Van Gogh’s life, including Irises (1889) and Ears of Wheat (1890), but the exhibit provides a broad overview of his career.

“The popular story of Van Gogh has tended to focus on his last few years and his death,” Bomford said. “But there is a rich and complex narrative that starts much earlier, one that is defined by Van Gogh’s tremendous drive to become an artist. Our aim was not to have a ’greatest hits’ exhibition but to show Van Gogh’s entire 10-year career in all its complexity and variety—ranging from the early naïve drawings after other artists; through the dark, earthy Dutch works; the sudden discovery of Impressionist color in Paris; the full radiance of the light he discovered in Provence; and the last works in Auvers-sur-Oise.”

For more information on the exhibit visit www.mfah.org