Vincent van Gogh
(1853 - 1890)
 

Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. His oeuvre includes landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits, most of which are characterized by bold colors and dramatic brushwork that contributed to the rise of expressionism in modern art. Van Gogh's work was beginning to gain critical attention before he died at age 37, by what was suspected at the time to be a suicide. During his lifetime, only one of Van Gogh's paintings, The Red Vineyard, was sold. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh

The Road Menders
1889
Oil on Canvas
29 x 36,5 cm
The Phillips Collection, Washington, D. C.
https://www.phillipscollection.org/collection/road-menders

 

Vincent van Gogh painted two versions of The Road Menders in 1889. The first variant, the final work of many outdoor scenes of that year, was executed in plein air, and the Phillips version, which followed shortly thereafter, was created in the studio. Both works depict the repaving a street in Saint-Rémy known at the time as the Cours de l’Est. The scene captivated the artist on one of several excursions from the Asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole during the fall and winter of 1889-90. The theme of workers in the landscape had been a prevalent motif of van Gogh’s paintings executed in Holland.