Most art enthusiasts know about van Gogh’s tumultuous, depression riddled life that ultimately lead to his suicide and plagued his attempts to become known as an artist during his life. Many know about his faithful and supportive brother Theo but few know about his sister in law Johanna van Gogh-Bonger who made it her life’s mission to assist the world in understanding that an artist’s work should reveal the very depths of their soul. Once the world was shown van Gogh’s canvases in that light, they were pulled out of obscurity and hung in the world’s most prestigious museums to be cherished by millions. Thanks to the #MeToo movement Jo van Gogh’s story is starting to immerge from the annals of art history. Her efforts are now being revealed and are testimony to one woman’s tenacity and courage. Read on to discover how one woman’s story is now bringing inspiration to women in the 21st century.



#MeToo movement: unearthing previously dismissed narratives



How van Gogh became famous

Although the #MeToo movement is pointing a finger at the cultural prominence of sexual assault and other abusive behaviors towards women, we cannot deny the sweeping effect it is having on politics, education, Hollywood, sports and even art. This movement is creating a much-warranted resurgence of feminism and underlining gender inequality across the board. It is even making us ask ourselves if we can be fans of an artist’s work if they have been accused of sexual assault. As the recent HBO documentary Allen v. Farrow so eloquently put it, “Can we, or should we, separate the art from the artist?”

Jo van Gogh would have argued that we should not and this is the story of her struggle and life long journey that would eventually make van Gogh a household name.



The woman behind the man



Johanna Bonger met Vincent’s younger brother Theo van Gogh in 1885, who at the time was working as an art dealer in Paris. After just two meetings Theo asked her for her hand in marriage. She boldly declined but he persisted, Jo’s taste for culture and longing to discover the mysterious world of artists and intellectuals slowly got the better of her and, a year and a half after Theo’s first proposal, she agreed to marry him.

Raised in a typical, middle-class family, Jo found herself standing, doors flung open, looking timidly into a completely foreign yet captivating world – Paris during the belle époque.

Theo van Gogh’s clients were bold, visionary artists, working to dismantle the Académie des Beaux-Art’s cold realism. Among them were Gauguin, Pissarro and Toulouse-Lautrec. Theo’s passion and enthusiasm for these artists impressed Jo as she came to realize that she was living during a great shift in art history.



Theo & Vincent van Gogh

From their very first encounter, Theo told Jo about his brother and his soul wrenching work. Every nook and cranny of their apartment was filled with Vincent’s paintings and sketches whose supply seemed never ending as new pieces popped up on their doorstep in crates shipped from France, Belgium, England and the Netherlands. As Vincent travelled he churned out work, sending it to his brother in the hopes that Theo could find buyers interested in them. Jo gained a penchant for modern art and began learning about composition and color theory all the while surrounded by Vincent’s revolutionary art.



One blow after another

Vincent came to Paris in 1890 to stay with Jo, Theo and their newborn child – who was named after Vincent. Jo was surprised by Vincent’s strong and bold appearance after hearing stories of her new brother in law’s tortured artist soul. After all, while she was announcing her engagement to Theo in 1888, Vincent was in Arles suffering a breakdown, culminating in his cutting his ear off. Due to his continually deteriorating mental state Theo would send him money and finally, after this last visit, decided to send him to a village north of Paris to receive further health treatment. Weeks after he was admitted the van Gogh’s received word that Vincent had shot himself. However there are some historians that believe he was in fact murdered. Theo arrived at his bedside just before his passing. Theo was completely destroyed by his brother’s death and would succumb to the last stages of syphilis just three months after Vincent’s passing in January 1891.

The only proof that Jo had of her short twenty-one month marriage - which at this point could almost have been mistaken for a dream - were her memories, her son, and approximately 400 of Vincent’s paintings and several hundred sketches.



#MeToo movement helps uncover how van Gogh became famous



How one woman persevered in a male dominated field

Jo van Gogh-Bonger was a petite woman with a self-proclaimed uncertainty about how to enter into the male dominated art world. When Theo passed away she had no official training in art or business. The truth of how van Gogh became famous is only surfacing now because an historian named Hans Luijten gained permission from the van Gogh family to read Jo’s diaries in 2009. Luijten took 10 years going through her diaries and another previous 15 years reading and studying Theo and Vincent’s letters. In 2009 he published a book about Jo, “Alles voor Vincent” (“All for Vincent”), which is yet to be translated into English. News of Jo’s diaries and the history of the role she played in making van Gogh famous seem to be hitting the English speaking portion of the art world at a decisive moment with the #MeToo movement in full swing.

After Theo’s death, Jo decided to return to Holland where she covered every inch of her walls with Vincent’s paintings. Here she took up writing in her journals again, after her three-years in Paris. Looking back at the first entry she wrote at age seventeen, she must have been refilled with youthful determination: “I would think it dreadful to have to say at the end of my life, ‘I’ve actually lived for nothing, I have achieved nothing great or noble.’”  This young woman’s sentiments were foreshadowing her need to make sure that Vincent’s life was indeed known as one full of passion and production and not the meaningless struggle he may have felt during his last bouts with depression.

Fuelled by what she looked upon as her two greatest responsibilities, her child and getting Vincent’s work seen and appreciated, she began pouring herself over the two brother’s correspondence. By combing through the letters, she began educating herself in art criticism.  She furthered her tutorials by reading every art journal she could lay her hands on. At the same time she began exposing herself to the popular artistic ideas of the time by frequenting intellectual circles of artists and poets.



A modern take on nature

As she immersed herself in Vincent’s letters, work and these intellectual circles she began to realize that van Gogh’s work went hand in hand with his words – they had to be presented together. In her brief time with the Impressionists in Paris she had seen that an artist had to look within to find their interpretation of nature, not just make a clear, firm or purified version of it.

With her well-rounded self-education in hand she began approaching art critics and dealers only to be turned down time and time again, noting in her journal: “We women are for the most part what men want us to be,” and speaking of one critic, Jan Veth, in particular: “I won’t rest until he likes them.” She was determined not to remain “what the men wanted her to be”!



Try, try and you will succeed



Jo & van Gogh’s first steps to becoming famous

Jo van Gogh finally succeeded in getting Vincent his first solo exhibition in Amsterdam in 1892. Other exhibitions quickly followed suit as critics began warming themselves to the idea of presenting an artist’s life and struggle along with their work – for the first time fusing art and artist together and perhaps giving us the first look at what would become the cliché of a starving artist.

By 1905 she arranged what would become the largest van Gogh exhibition in history at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, having emerged from her timid insecure chrysalis, she took on the task of organizing every minute detail of the exhibition – invitations, guest lists even what bow ties the staff should wear. Critics flocked from all corners of Europe to see van Gogh’s 484 works on display. It has been noted that those in attendance left feeling as though they had known the artist, almost as thought they had taken part in his tragic life. This event placed van Gogh on a pedestal as one of the key figures of the modern art era. In 1916 Jo moved to New York on a new mission to make van Gogh’s name known in America as well. She kept the memories of her time in Paris during the belle époque alive by shipping out canvases and sketches to museums and galleries while struggling with Parkinson’s disease until she passed away in 1925 at the age of 63.



The legacy continues

Jo van Gogh’s perseverance and ability to see a shift in how art and literature were being viewed at the time brought her brother in law success. Many of the pieces stayed in the family and were leant to museums; Jo’s great-grandson remembers the 220 original van Goghs stocked in their family home, which today could probably be valued at billions of dollars. Jo’s collection finally found a permanent home at the Vincent van Gogh Foundation.



#MeToo & Artalistic a woman owned virtual art gallery

We especially enjoyed sharing this little known story about how van Gogh became famous as a way to support the #MeToo movement because Artalistic is a woman owned and run company. In just two short years its founder, Cynthia Soddu has succeeded in selling thousands of pieces by well-established and emerging artists from around the world. Artalistic has proudly been featured in various French magazines and was recently featured in the French edition of Forbes magazine. Feel free to browse our carefully curated collection of paintings, sculptures, photographs and limited edition prints or contact us if you are an artist interested in creating a portfolio!