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The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh is a collection of letters written by the artist to his friends and especially to his brother, Theo. These letters form the autobiography that van Gogh never wrote. Summary of the Book There can be no study of art without encountering Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh didn’t begin painting until his late twenties, and he died at the age of 37. In little over a decade, he achieved what hundreds of thousands of artists struggled to achieve in a lifetime. Van Gogh was an avid reader, and it is relatively a little known fact that he also wrote letters. In his life, he sent hundreds of letters to his friends and family. Most of his letters, however, were addressed to his brother Theo. Van Gogh wrote to Theo about many things, his work, his inspiration and his fascination with various facets of life. He wrote of the books he read, and the other work he encountered. His writing reflects his literary interests, and his own unique literary style. He was eloquent in his letters, expressing himself just as masterfully with a pen as he did with a paintbrush. Like his self-portraits, he painted a picture of himself through these letters, not knowing that his brother’s wife religiously collected them, forming a most singular resource for all fans of his work. In doing so, she provided the world with a unique autobiography of one of the most legendary artists of his time, the artist who’d not be known in his own time, an artist who struggled under the weight of his own depression, possibly turning a gun to his own body in an attempt to find salvation. This is the story of the artist known as Vincent van Gogh, told through his letters to “Dear Theo”. About Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter. He is remembered for his extraordinarily prolific body of work, comprising more than 2,100 artworks, consisting of 860 oil paintings and more than 1,300 water colors, drawings, sketches, and prints. Most of his work were accomplished in just over a decade. He drew self-portraits, landscapes, still lifes, portraits as well as paintings of cypresses, wheat fields and sunflowers. Van Gogh is best known for his Self-Portrait with Straw Hat, Wheatfield with Crows, Almond Blossoms, Road with Cypress and Star and La Mousmé.