The Starry Night

Vincent van Gogh painted The Starry Night in June 1889, during his voluntary stay at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in southern France. He had admitted himself the previous May after the incident in which he severed part of his own ear during a breakdown in Arles.

Van Gogh's letters to his brother Theo describe a period of intense productivity. He viewed the night sky from his barred window and made numerous studies of the stars before completing the painting. The village at the bottom appears to be a composite of the Saint-Rémy landscape and memories of his Dutch homeland rather than a literal view.

Van Gogh himself called it a "failure" in letters to Theo. After his death in 1890, it passed to his brother, then to Theo's widow Jo van Gogh-Bonger, who was central to establishing Van Gogh's posthumous reputation. MoMA acquired it in 1941. It has never left the museum's collection.