For nine weeks (October through December 1888) Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh shared residency at 2 Place Lamartine, The Yellow House in Arles, located in the South of France. During this brief period of time these two artists were dedicated to producing the art of the future.

Paul Gauguin was a forty year old Frenchman, with a background in financial trading, living separated from his wife and children. Vincent Van Gogh was thirty-five years old, a Dutchman who had tried a career in art dealing and preaching before becoming an artist. Both had begun painting later in life.

Vincent was not a tranquil being. He was often worked up and was prone to disturbingly fast and jerky movements. His very manner, speech and movements caused disharmony with those around him. Others found him to be quite odd.

Vincent frequently compared his life to "a frail vessel at sea, tossed by every storm." He lived a very hard and difficult life suffering from what today many believe to have been Bi-polar Disease (once known as Manic-depression). Perhaps teetering on the brink of insanity is what made him one of the best artists of all time - his ability to see what others could not see.

On December 23, 1888 Van Gogh cut off his left ear in a fit of insanity.

He spent most of the rest of his life institutionalized and died of a self-inflicted gun shot wound at the age of thirty-seven on July 29,1890.

Paul Gauguin died May 8, 1903, one month before his fifty-fifth birthday. Most likely from syphilis.

A century after Vincent Van Gogh's death the paintings which once adorned the walls of "The Yellow House" have become known throughout the world.