The Widow Van Gogh: Tragedy, Triumph, and the Woman Who Made Vincent van Gogh a Legend

Summary

On a summer night in 1891, a Dutch widow left her home and went for a walk. It was the anniversary of the death of her brother-in-law, Vincent van Gogh, and she was at the beginning of an improbable decades-long journey that would transform the painter into one of the most beloved artists of all time.

Jo van Gogh-Bonger is a critical piece of the puzzle in understanding the life and posthumous fame of Vincent van Gogh, but most have never even heard her name. Jo was the wife of Vincent's younger brother Theo, and when Theo died just six months after Vincent, she found herself with an extraordinary inheritance. Vincent's life’s work might well have wound up lost, casually dispersed, or relegated to the family attic. But Jo had other ideas. The Widow Van Gogh takes a fresh and illuminating approach to the Van Gogh story by placing Jo at the center. While they had every intention of being good to each other, Vincent, Theo, and Jo found themselves in a tragic love and financial triangle. Joan Martelli offers new insight into the burning questions that have long puzzled art lovers—why Vincent cut off part of his ear, why he shot himself, and how, after selling one painting in his lifetime, he achieved such worldwide fame.

With vivid prose and intimate details, Martelli details the last tumultuous years of Vincent's life and the three decades following his death as Jo struggles to be a good mother and a noble person, while also trying to find happiness. Jo would take on the role of dealer, publicist, and editor, and remain true to what she saw as her duty to be the Vincent's champion. The Widow van Gogh might be set in another era, but family tensions and issues of loyalty, guilt, financial hardship, misunderstanding, loneliness, mental illness, and ambition resonate today.