Johanna Van Gogh Bonger

On 29th July 1890, in Auvers, not far from Paris, Vincent Van Gogh decided to put an end to his own troubled life. No one could imagine that his decision would soon also drag into the grave the devoted younger brother Theodorus. Having put in place some unrealistic attempts to pay Vincent's work the homage it deserved, Theo Van Gogh gradually began to isolate himself from his loved ones (his wife Johanna and his son, the artist's namesake) and eventually from life itself worn out by the pain of loss.

Just six months after his brother's death, Theo left Johanna, barely thirty, a widow and orphaned little Vincent, who was just over a year old. A large amount was left behind of unusual paintings, doomed to failure because it was the work of a mentally ill, and the copious correspondence between Theo and Vincent (over six hundred letters), which attested, among other things, a very hard truth to swallow for the young widow: having been, not Theo's first, but his second love.

After returning to her native Netherlands, Johanna began to challenge the prejudice surrounding the work of her brother-in-law and her condition as a woman and a young widow, left alone with a small son. She first opened an inn in the countryside and moved there, then turned it into a real museum, hanging his brother-in-law's paintings, brought in from Paris, in every room. Therefore, with insight, initiative and the management skills her husband had lacked because of grief, she took advantage of all the opportunities that the ultimately fair encounters were beginning to offer her and disclosed without hesitation the disruptive uniqueness and  the revolutionary effort of Vincent Van Gogh. The history of humanity will never cease to be thankful to her.