The Oxford Arts Alliance and the Oxford Library are pleased to partner to host an Art Lecture by Fred Dixon titled “Van Gogh: From Abject Failure to Superstar.”  All are welcome to this event held at the Oxford Arts Alliance Building located at 38 S. Third Street.

Vincent Van Gogh’s life is art history’s most compelling  story. He failed at just about everything he attempted  during his short life. Yet, posthumously, he would become the wonder of the world. He became the prototype for the misunderstood, tormented artist who sold just one painting in his lifetime. His is the story of a mad genius who made us see the world in a new way.

Van Gogh was also a letter writer of heart piercing eloquence. Hear how he chronicled with heartbreaking urgency his mental condition and how he came to understand his art was the exclusive reason for his existence. See how his hallucinatory visions were so bright they nearly blinded us and how his art became more and more exciting and emotional and, in the process, more endearing and universally irresistible.

Fred Dixon and his wife Martha began collecting art too many years ago to remember. Their home in Chadds Ford has become a mini-museum with 130 paintings and sculpture pieces. They have traveled to major museums in the U.S. and Europe and to the great cathedrals in   Italy to view Renaissance and Baroque art. There were two years of study at the Barnes Foundation followed by a docent training course. Fred and Martha were docents at the Barnes for ten years. All this culminated in the publication of Fred’s book “700 Years of Art History: Pre-Renaissance to Modernism.” It will be available at the discounted price of $35 for this lecture.