Jo van Gogh-Bonger: The Woman Who Made Vincent Famous
Hans Luijten
(Bloomsbury Visual Arts, £20)
VINCENT VAN GOGH’S life was one of complete failure. In every enterprise he undertook, he fell short. He failed to build a career as an art dealer in London in Paris; he failed in his mission to become a Protestant pastor in the Belgian coal-mining communities; he failed in his desire to create with Paul Gauguin an artists’ community —a ‘studio of the south’—in Arles; he even failed to kill himself instantly when, in 1890, he shot himself in the chest, then lingered on for another two days before dying of his wounds. Most notably, he failed abjectly as a painter.
It brings a remarkable woman to wider notice
How, then, did he subsequently become such a commanding and beloved figure? What turned him from an art-world reject into a painter whose works and legend are universally recognisable? How was it that van Gogh, who sold only a single painting during his lifetime, became the world’s most expensive artist when, in 1987, one of his pictures of sunflowers fetched a record £25,087,500 and five more of his paintings have since gone on to sell for more than £90 million? The answer to all these questions is his sister-in-law, Johanna ‘Jo’ van Gogh-Bonger, the widow of his brother Theo.
Theo, a successful art dealer, was not only Vincent’s younger brother, but his one true friend and his only unwavering source of support, both financial and moral. Events happened in a rush: Theo and Jo married in 1889; their son, named Vincent after his uncle, was born in 1890; the painter committed
