Book Competition

This week’s competition prize is Van Gogh: The Birth of an Artist, by Sjraar van Heugten (Yale University Press, £40). Click here for your chance to win.

In 1878, at age 25, Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) arrived in the area of Belgium known as the Borinage to work as a Protestant evangelist in rural coal mining communities. He failed in that vocation, and after months of soul-searching, in August 1880, he decided to become an artist. This fascinating publication is the first to examine in depth Van Gogh’s time in the Borinage and his artistic development in the following years. Augmenting the text are letters Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo from the Borinage, in which he describes his desire to sketch, and drawings that he modeled after prints of masterworks by artists such as Jean-Francois Millet.

For your chance to win simply answer the following question and submit your details here before midday on 14 August 2015.

Which art dealership employed Vincent Van Gogh in the summer of 1869?

This competition closes at midday on 14 August 2015.

For our last competition prize we offered Delacroix and His Forgotten World: The Origins of Romantic Painting, by Margaret MacNamidhe (I.B.Tauris, £30).

In which year was Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People first exhibited?

Answer: 1831

Congratulations to the winner, Simon Upton.