In 1880, John Peter Russell left Sydney to seek an artistic education and, like many painters of the time, ended up in Paris. Vincent van Gogh also migrated to the city’s ateliers, and in 1886 they met. The friendship that developed between the twenty-eight-year-old Australian and the thirty-three-year-old Dutchman continued until the latter’s death four years later. Russell painted a penetrating portrait of Van Gogh that captures both the intensity and untrusting nature of his mentally vulnerable subject. The two men exchanged letters, and Van Gogh sent Russell sketches and photographs.
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