Vincent van Gogh’s maverick talent has put him at the centre of European culture for more than a century. His works make headlines when they sell, from the record-breaking moment his Irises went for £27m at Sotheby’s in 1987, right up to this month’s predicted hoopla in Hong Kong, where Christie’s are to auction his riverside scene, Moored Boats, painted two years earlier, for an estimated $30m-$50m – likely to set a record for works from his later, Parisian period.
The Dutch artist’s dramatic renderings of simple things – plants, trees, furniture and faces – are international emblems of the way we value art. So much so that London’s National Gallery’s renowned 1888 sunflower painting was deliberately targeted last year by Just Stop Oil climate activists, who lobbed the contents of a soup tin at it.
