Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #503304 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 226 pages

Review
Until now Van Gogh has remained one of the most enigmatic figures of modern art, shrouded in the myths that have been created around him. This book redresses the balance with a clear and sensitive account of a complex and talented man. Ken Wilkie uses his journalistic skills to investigate Van Gogh's life, traveling in his footsteps around Europe and stopping at nothing in his quest to discover the truth. He observes the fanaticism that many people have for the artist and soon finds himself under the same spell. Van Gogh lived for 37 years and resided in 22 different places but the author soon noticed that the years he spent in London, Paris and Belgium had been left unresearched by previous biographers. Wilkie's search led him to find some of the last people living who had actually met the artist and who were eager to tell their stories. As the real picture unfolds, we meet a creative genius scarred by his loveless childhood, unable to form lasting relationships with women and yet retaining a belief in a better and more philanthropic world. Wilkie uncovers the identity of Van Gogh's first love and looks at his other relationships and how these experiences influenced the artist's depression and inspired his creativity. The exciting discovery of a previously unknown Van Gogh drawing is just one of the many rewards for the author's persistent pursuit of the truth. Against resistance from Van Gogh's descendants, Wilkie discovers the extent of the artist's syphilis and its contribution to his physical and mental ill health and examines the possibility that the artist fathered a child by his live-in lover, the prostitute Clasina. The Van Gogh File is a story of investigation and discovery, told with precision, humour and compassion. Unmissable. Highly recommended. (Kirkus UK)

The Big Issue
Combining diligent research with madcap capers... Wilkie has come up with an excellent guide to a captivating character.

Synopsis
Starting from a magazine assignment, Ken Wilkie continued to investigate the life of Van Gogh for the next thirty years and chased evidence of Van Gogh's unknown life all over Europe, from Belgium and the Netherlands to England and France. Ken Wilkie tracked down the last person alive to have actually known Van Gogh, as well as finding new details of his life that illuminate the sources of unhappiness in the artist's life, as well as the origins of his creativity. We find evidence of Van Gogh's relationship with a widow in Lambeth, the grave of a namesake still-born child in the Netherlands, and evidence of the terrible illness that affected both Vincent, and Theo, Van Gogh and which was suppressed by their family afterwards.

Customer Reviews

Ken Wilkie finds ... Ken Wilkie!
The Van Gogh File is as much about Ken Wilkie's tireless search (as told by Ken Wilkie) for various missing links in van Gogh's life as it is about van Gogh. Wilkie is a man obsessed, driven to turn over every last stone in his quest for the truth. He finds distant relations, photographs, medical records, houses, missing letters and so on, much of which is fascinating (not least of all the discovery of a drawing now attributed to van Gogh), but the problem with this book, and what ultimately sinks it, is that you don't know what you can trust in it. Wilkie, who portrays himself as a man possessed, doesn't know the difference between rumour and proof and often gives equal weight to matters he has empirical evidence for and matters he only has a strong hunch about. Therefore, for instance, he concocts evidence that van Gogh actually fathered a child through third-generation hearsay and the fact that certain letters from van Gogh that *could* refer to said child during the appropriate period are missing or excised. In other words, he applies his considerable detective skills to a case of wishful thinking. This particular episode in van Gogh's life leads the author on a goose chase, with the reader in tow, to folks who may or may not be direct descendants of said illegitimate child. Although Wilkie often begins in the spirit of objective investigation, he allows himself to be swallowed whole by his desire to crack a mystery (often one of his own invention) and when all is said and done, the reader can only conclude that he has witnessed a particularly amusing, but not convincing, performance. The scientific method, this is not. But it is a whole heck of a lot of fun, and Wilkie is as engaging an interlocutor as the most interesting uncle you've ever had. But not to be taken too seriously by anyone genuinely interested in van Gogh.

Best book I have read for a long time
Excellent book. Could not put it down. I like the way facts were investigated and new information was arrived at. As a Van Gogh fan I learned a lot. Buy it!!!

Superb!
I prefer factual books as opposed to fiction, true stories not made up ones and this book has to be the best book I've ever read.
Its based on the authors (Ken Wilkie) personal account of attempting to trace the living decendants of Vincent throughout Europe
including France, Holland and England and to find out about the man, Vincent Van Gogh.

Detetive like in his approach, the adventures and predicaments Ken gets in to are superbly entertaining, the secrets discovered
remarkable and this all leaves you feeling that you don't want to put the book down.

This really is great stuff I can't recommend it enough. I only finished it last week and already I want to read it all again.

If you like Van Gogh, just buy it, you will not regret it.