The Yellow House. Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles; Penguin UK, 2007

The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles is art critic Martin Gayford's account of the tumultuous nine weeks in which the famous nineteenth century artists Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin shared a house in the small French town of Arles.

Two artistic giants. One small house.

From October to December 1888 a pair of at the time largely unknown artists lived under one roof in the French provincial town of Arles. Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh ate, drank, talked, argued, slept and painted in one of the most intense and astonishing creative outpourings in history. Yet as the weeks passed Van Gogh buckles under the strain, fought with his companion and committed an act of violence on himself that prompted Gauguin to flee without saying goodbye to his friend.

The Yellow House is an intimate portrait of their time together as well as a subtle exploration of a fragile friendship, art, madness, genius behind a shocking act of self-mutilation that the world has sought to explain ever since.