New Van Gogh show in Paris focuses on artist’s extraordinarily productive and tragic final months

By JOHN LEICESTER
Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — A new museum exhibition in Paris focuses on the last months of Dutch master Vincent van Gogh before he shot himself in 1890. The unprecedented show is extraordinary and extraordinarily painful because this final period of the artist’s life was also one of his most productive. Van Gogh churned out an astounding 74 paintings, among them some of his masterpieces, in a mere 72 days while living in the French village of Auvers-sur-Oise. The French capital’s Orsay Museum has assembled around 40 of them. At age 37 and the height of his powers, Van Gogh was splurging out genius at a rate of a painting a day. Less than three weeks later, he was dead.