Programme 1

Now one of the world's favourite artists, with curiosity about his life at an all time high, the story of van Gogh starts in his birthplace, the town of Zundert in the Netherlands. Today's floral processions celebrating the artist contrast starkly with the conflict within the quiet Protestant family as they tried to find gainful employment for their son. His birth on 30 March 1853 to the pastor Theodorus van Gogh and his wife Anna, was the first of six to the couple. He was named after his uncle, an art dealer, Vincent Willem van Gogh. After a lonely and awkward childhood at boarding school in Tilburg then at secondary school, Vincent was despatched to The Hague to join his namesake at Goupil & Co. In 1873 he was promoted and sent to London, home of four million people. During a daily walk from his lodgings in Brixton to Covent Garden, his eyes were opened to the realities of poverty and wretched living conditions.