Van Gogh’s Enduring Legacy
An Anthology of Full-Color Journals
Volume 1

Although there have been numerous past accounts of the life of Vincent van Gogh—some reasonable and some apocryphal—Creative Storytellers now presents an anthology of beautifully illustrated full-color journals that together form the most comprehensive, factual and eminently readable account of Vincent’s short yet incredibly productive life.

This first edition introduces the three people who made the most significant contribution to Vincent van Gogh’s enduring legacy as one of the prolific, charismatic and beloved artists of all time: Johanna Van Gogh-Bonger, his sister-in-law; Theo Van Gogh, his benevolent brother; and Helene Kröller-Müller, the prestigious patron who was to accumulate what is today the second largest collection of Vincent’s paintings and drawings.

Foremost of these three people was Johanna van Gogh-Bonger. For without Johanna, we may never have known of the true nature and accomplishments of the extraordinary Vincent had it not been for her diaries, correspondence, and ardent advocacy. This first volume is, therefore, primarily her story, and recounts how her dedication and tenacity were to forever change the history of art.

Johanna was Vincent’s sister-in-law, and Theo’s wife. After the deaths of Vincent and Theo, who both died in their 30s and within six months of each other, Johanna became both conservator and stalwart proponent of the immense collection of Van Gogh paintings and drawings that had been left to her young son and heir, also named Vincent. Johanna was to single-handedly preserve and chronicle over 520 hand-written letters (eventually more than 900 would come to light) without which we would never have understood the devoted relationship and interdependence Vincent had with his brother Theo, nor the remarkable beneficence that lay at the very core of the Van Gogh family as a whole.

Authors David Glen and William Havlicek, after many years of meticulous research, demonstrate how Johanna’s indomitable and tenacious spirit met with great antipathy in a time when women were not welcome in the world of art dealing. Yet her steadfast determination and stamina were soon to attract the attention of principal art dealers, including the renowned Cassirer and Bremmer, who were to orchestrate the sale of a large number of Van Gogh paintings and drawings to the affluent collector Helene Kröller-Müller. These comprise the second-largest collection of Van Gogh’s artwork, now on display in the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, the Netherlands. The story of the Kröller-Müller family’s involvement in the collection of Vincent’s art also tells of a wealthy German family’s fall from prosperity and grace in the post-war Netherlands.

It is also Johanna’s vibrant personality and character that resuscitates in us an ethos that today is sadly waning … one that puts integrity, loyalty, tolerance, perseverance and, above-all, kindness at the forefront of how we conduct our own lives, and how this can be a paradigm for our children and all the generations to come.