Vincent van Gogh: Matters of Identity

by Yves Vasseur, Sjraar Van Heugten (Introduction), Marije Vellekoop (Preface)

The revelation of a misidentified face in a photograph—once thought to be Vincent, now known to be Theo van Gogh—leads to a novelesque story of revised art history

Full of surprising anecdotes, this book tells the story of the discovery in 2018 that one of only two known photographs of Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) is, in fact, of his brother, Theo. The detective-style narrative continues from there to Samuel Delsaut, who found two drawings attributed to Van Gogh in 1958. The archives of the Delsaut family revealed details casting doubt on the authenticity of these drawings, along with abundant correspondence between Samuel’s son and the son of Dr. Paul Gachet, who cared for Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise. A real-life lesson in historical criticism, this book, beautifully illustrated with reproductions of Van Gogh’s work, has resonance with our contemporary predicament distinguishing information from rumor, journalism from propaganda.

Distributed for Mercatorfonds

160 pages, Paperback

Published February 23, 2021

Reviews

[Kiera Newton · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this is really did, but in honesty, its a long drawn out book about a photograph that turns out the be Theo and not Vincent. Another book where you have to flick back a forth to find the reference photos.