"Published to accompany a major touring exhibition, this book brings together for the first time the great portraits from all periods of the painter's life. The story begins with the relatively unknown body of vivid, carefully executed drawings of orphans and paupers produced in The Hague when he was a young man. It continues with van Gogh's time in Paris, where the influence of Impressionism, Japanese art, and contemporaries like Gauguin and Bernard led him to produce some of his most famous images.".

"Each work is reproduced and set in context by leading scholars. Individually, their essays focus on particular groups of work, shedding new light on van Gogh's aims and methods. Collectively, they establish the centrality of portraiture to his oeuvre."--BOOK JACKET.