As well as being a novelist (ten published books to date), I’m a Senior Lecturer in Prose at Liverpool John Moores University. My current academic fields of interest are the role Johanna van Gogh-Bonger played in Vincent’s rise to fame, the silencing of women involved in creative pursuits, and the consideration of a novelist’s ethical and moral responsibilities when fictionalising a real life. My true passion lies in the creative uncovering of those erased stories, and in adding to the emerging conversation. That’s why I’ve shifted from writing contemporary to historical novels. I’m also known as the international, bestselling author Caroline Smailes (The Drowning of Arthur Braxton).
On Vincent van Gogh’s death, and the subsequent death of his brother, Theo, six months later, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger – at only twenty-eight years old – became keeper and advocate of Vincent’s immense collection of paintings, sketches, letters, and illustrations.
Whilst grieving and caring for her infant son, Jo translated those letters. That we are able to read Vincent’s letters and to hear his words add both depth and insight to our appreciation of his art. This book is our chance to connect with a Vincent beyond the tortured artist that contemporary society portrays. These letters are one of Jo’s many gifts to us.
Presents annotated translations of Van Gogh's correspondence with his brother Theo from 1872, when he was working in a gallery in the Hague, until his death, as well as letters to other recipients and related materials
Her existence as an artist’s sister-in-law, art dealer’s wife, widow, and mother overshadowed her key contribution to the reputation building she undertook for the van Gogh family. I wanted to understand how Johanna and Theo began their relationship. I needed to understand why Johanna, after Vincent’s death, became obsessed with providing the artist’s work with the recognition it failed to attract in his lifetime.
I was thrilled to discover this now out-of-print book. It includes translations of letters exchanged between Johanna and Theo. It provides a stunning platform to voice the bond, love, and the intimacy that the couple gifted each other in their too-brief time together.
This is one of the most endearing and unaffected love stories.
The happiness of Theo van Gogh (1857-1891) and Jo van Gogh-Bonger (1862-1925) was to last less than two years. After some initial hesitation on Jo's part, they became a couple in December 1888, and were separated by Theo's mental breakdown in early October 1890. His death in January 1891 brought their life together to an end. Their correspondence, comprising 101 letters, is kept in the Van Gogh Museum and presents an endearing picture of two young people planning the necessary arrangements for their life together in Paris. They discuss finding an apartment, purchasing household goods, and the style of the…
Separating the true stories from the myths, The Duty of Memory provides a deeper understanding of the diverse motivations that drove ordinary people to join an underground network of French Resistants despite terrible odds and horrifying consequences.
This book takes the reader inside the true story of men and women…
I maintain that the only way to gain a true understanding of Vincent van Gogh is to identify his role in seemingly peripheral narratives.
This book considers the Van Gogh sisters, and gives stunning voices to their previously untold narratives. An intimate and necessary insight into the siblings’ relationship, their struggles with mental health, and their intelligent observations of the changing social climate are given.
Without doubt, to recognise Vincent fully, there’s a need to both navigate and to appreciate the female relationships that influenced him.
The lively and revealing correspondence that Vincent van Gogh maintained with his art-dealer brother Theo is famous as a source of insight into the mind of one of the most celebrated artists of all time. But what of Anna, Lies and Willemien van Gogh, with whom Vincent had intimate and sometimes turbulent relationships? It was an argument with his oldest sister, Anna, in the aftermath of their father's death that provoked Vincent to leave the Netherlands and never return.
The Van Gogh siblings grew up at a time when long-distance travel by train first became possible. As each went their…
Sadly, when asked about the artist, most people describe Vincent as the man who chopped off his own ear. I hate that they do.
This book though is neither gratuitous nor indulgent. Instead, it offers a detailed, well-researched, and intelligent response to the question - Why did Van Gogh cut off his ear?There has been much speculation about the events that led to Vincent delivering his ear to a maid at a brothel in Arles.
This book is essential reading for any who wishes to open conversations about Vincent’s motivations and the happenings that led to that gruesome act on a specific day in December.
On a dark night in Provence in December 1888 Vincent van Gogh cut off his ear. It is an act that has come to define him. Yet for more than a century biographers and historians seeking definitive facts about what happened that night have been left with more questions than answers.
In Van Gogh’s Ear Bernadette Murphy sets out to discover exactly what happened that night in Arles. Why would an artist at the height of his powers commit such a brutal act of self-harm? Was it just his lobe, or did Van Gogh really cut off his entire ear?…
After Dr. Shawn Jennings, a busy family physician, suffered a brainstem stroke on May 13, 1999, he woke from a coma locked inside his body, aware and alert but unable to communicate or move. Once he regained limited movement in his left…
Martin Bailey is an expert on all things Van Gogh, and any of his books could have been recommended.
This one though - if we are learning about influences that have shaped and guided and disconcerted Vincent - has to be considered. To know the artist is to understand the numerous homes and landscapes that have shaped and influenced both him and his art. In an era when people rarely left the area where they were born, Van Gogh was both a traveller and unsettled.
This book made me truly consider what that might actually mean.
Vincent van Gogh was a restless soul. He spent his twenties searching for a vocation and once he had determined to become an artist, he remained a traveller, always seeking fresh places for the inspiration and opportunities he needed to create his work.
Living with Vincent van Gogh tells the story of the great artist's life through the lens of the places where he lived and worked, including Amsterdam, London, Paris and Provence, and examines the impact of these cityscapes and landscapes on his creative output. Featuring artworks, unpublished archival documents and contemporary landscape photography, this book provides unique insight…
She’s been painted out of history…until now.
Who tells her story?
In 1890, Vincent Van Gogh dies penniless, unknown, a man tortured by his own mind.
Eleven years later his work is exhibited in Paris and his unparalleled talent finally recognised. The tireless efforts of one woman gave the world one of its greatest creative minds.
But twenty-eight-year-old Johanna Van Gogh-Bonger, Vincent’s sister-in-law and the keeper of his immense collection of paintings, sketches, and letters, has, until now, been written out of history. This beautiful, moving novel finally gives this extraordinary woman a voice…
Marianne Bohr and her husband, about to turn sixty, are restless for adventure. They decide on an extended, desolate trek across the French island of Corsica — the GR20, Europe’s toughest long-distance footpath — to challenge what it means to grow old. Part travelogue, part buddy story, part memoir, The…
Adventures in the Radio Trade documents a life in radio, largely at Canada's public broadcaster. It's for people who love CBC Radio, those interested in the history of Canadian Broadcasting, and those who want to hear about close encounters with numerous luminaries such as Margaret Atwood, J. Michael Straczynski, Stuart…
