New Theory Suggests Artist van Gogh May Have Actually Been Murdered

Everyone knows Vincent van Gogh’s story – the tortured Dutch artist whose work was misunderstood during his lifetime, the strange behaviors such as cutting his own ear off, and his premature death in 1890 at the age of 37. A death that, until now, was universally assumed to have been a suicide. New information that caught the attention of Los Gatos gallery Amour d’Art turns this assumption on its head, though. In the upcoming December issue of Vanity Fair, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographers Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith put forth new evidence that suggests van Gogh was actually murdered.

Van Gogh’s suicide has become part of the artist’s legend. He had suffered from nervous breakdowns, and was known more in his lifetime for drinking and carousing with prostitutes than for selling paintings. After his untimely and tragic death, his work became revered and is now celebrated for its post-impressionist genius. His legend lives on today and continues to influence countless contemporary artists, as one can see from Michael Godard’s tongue-in-cheek limited edition series of works inspired by master artists, including “Van Gogh – Master Series.” So, when Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith released “Van Gogh: The Life” in 2011, positing that the artist was actually murdered and didn’t commit suicide, people didn’t want to accept it. The art and literary worlds heavily criticized the book and its claims. But thanks to some new evidence that the writers are releasing through this Vanity Fair article, it seems we may have to give their theory a second look.

What they suggest is that a man named René Secrétan, who had been known to dress up as Buffalo Bill while carrying around a broken pistol that belonged to the innkeeper of the Ravoux Inn where van Gogh lived, confessed to accidentally shooting Van Gogh more than 60 years later after he saw Vicente Minnelli’s 1956 biopic on the artist, “Lust for Life.” According to Naifeh and White Smith’s research, Secrétan had also admitted to leading a gang of drunken teen hooligans who frequently bullied van Gogh. The allegedly accidental shooting took place in the fields of Auvers, near Paris, and left the artist with a bullet in the abdomen that took 29 hours to kill him.

After considering some of the known circumstances, Naifeh and White Smith’s theory doesn’t seem so farfetched. Several days before van Gogh died in July of 1890, he ordered new paints. On the day he was shot, he wrote a hopeful and positive letter to his brother Theo. There was no suicide note ever found. The death reports all simply stated that the artist “wounded himself,” say Naifeh and White Smith, but there was no mention of suicide. There are no surviving police records left, but there is no evidence that they ever ruled it a suicide. But, considering the kind of life he had lived, it was easy to assume van Gogh took his own life.

One thing is certain – van Gogh’s popularity skyrocketed after his death as rumors about his life expounded. One of his paintings was recently purchased by a Chinese film magnate for $62 million, according to artnet news. However he died, it was too soon, but thankfully we still have so much of his work to enjoy.

Visit Amour d’Art online or stop by the gallery at 216. N. Santa Cruz Ave. in Los Gatos, CA to see some of the many contemporary artists whose work is inspired by van Gogh and other revered painters.