Johanna van Gogh-Bonger

Johanna Bonger (Portrait of Johan Cohen Gosschalk, 1905)

Johanna Gezina van Gogh-Bonger (born October 4, 1862 in Amsterdam , † September 2, 1925 in Laren (North Holland) ) was a Dutch art collector and sister-in-law of Vincent van Gogh . As the wife of Theo van Gogh , she inherited the estate of Theo and Vincent van Gogh in 1891. By organizing exhibitions and publishing the Van Gogh brothers' correspondence, she made Vincent van Gogh's work internationally known.

Life

The daughter of insurance agent Hendrik C. Bonger studied English and worked for a few months in the library of the British Museum in London . At the age of 22 she became an English teacher at the Elburg boarding school for girls . She later taught at the girls' high school in Utrecht . She met Theo van Gogh, whom she married in 1889, through her brother Andries , who had gone to Paris after graduating from school and made friends with Odilon Redon among others in artistic circles . After his death in 1891, she returned to Bussum in Holland with their son Vincent Willem and a large collection of paintings, including works by Adolphe Monticelli and Paul Gauguin , but above all the works by Vincent van Gogh . She declined advice to part with this collection of largely unknown artists. She earned her living, among other things, as the operator of a pension and a translator from French and English. In 1894 she joined the social democratic SDAP , in which her brother Willem Adriaan Bonger was also active. In 1901 she married the painter Johan Cohen Gosschalk (1873–1912). In 1903 the family moved to Amsterdam.

With the aim of making Vincent van Gogh's work better known, Johanna Bonger organized carefully selected exhibitions, some of which she financed herself. A highlight was a large exhibition she financed in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1905, at which 457 works by van Gogh were shown and 2000 visitors were counted. As early as 1901/2, Bruno and Paul Cassirer had organized the first Van Gogh exhibition in Berlin. With the help of Paul Cassirer, exhibitions took place in the secessions in Munich and Berlin and in the Folkwang Museum Hagen (1912). Works by van Gogh were the focus of the Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne in 1912 . After the first exhibition in the USA in 1913, further successful exhibitions followed in Paris , New York and London after the end of the First World War . From 1916 to 1919 Johanna Bonger lived with her son in New York .

The importance of Johanna Bonger in the popularization of Vincent van Gogh's art is initially seen in the fact that she was able to dispose of almost the entire life of the artist. She maintained contacts with art dealers, but did not have to sell paintings for financial reasons. Therefore, it could charge high prices and control sales. In fact, she deliberately did not sell some of the best works, but only had them shown in exhibitions. She thus kept a family-owned collection that would later form the basis of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam .

Johanna Bonger also collected, arranged and edited the correspondence between Theo and Vincent van Gogh (1914) and also arranged an English edition. Bruno Cassirer published a first selection in 1906. The publication of the letters contributed significantly to van Gogh's popularity. Bonger's biographical introduction shaped Vincent van Gogh's perception as a genius who was not recognized during his lifetime . Bonger's editing practice was later criticized for having edited only a selection of the entire correspondence.

Fonts

• Kort geluk: de briefwisseling tussen Theo van Gogh and Jo Bonger . Van Gogh Museum. Waanders, Zwolle 1999.
• Vincent van Gogh. Brieven aan zijn Broeder. Uitgegeven en toegelicht door zijn schoonzuster J. van Gogh-Bonger. , Amsterdam 1914.
  • Vincent van Gogh. Letters to his brother. Translated from the Dutch by Leo Klein-Diepold . Cassirer, Berlin 1914.
  • Vincent van Gogh. Letters to his brother. Translated from the Dutch by Leo Klein-Diepold, from the French by Carl Einstein . Cassirer, Berlin 1928.
• The letters of Vincent van Gogh to his brother, 1872-1886 ;. With a memoir by his sister-in-law, J. van Gogh-Bonger… . Constable & Co .; Houghton Mifflin Co., London, Boston, New York 1927.

literature

• Vincent Willem van Gogh: In Memoriam J. van Gogh Bonger . In: The letters of Vincent van Gogh to his brother, 1872-1886; with a memoir by his sister-in-law, J. van Gogh-Bonger. Vol. 1. Constable, London 1927, pp. Lxv-lxxii.
• Hans Luijten: Everything voor Vincent. Het leven van Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Prometheus, Amsterdam 2019, ISBN 978-90-446-4166-0
• Irene Meyjes: Johanna van Gogh-Bonger: Art dealer? Scriptio, Deventer 2007.
• Camilo Sánchez: The widow of the van Gogh brothers. Translated from the Spanish by Peter Kultzen. Unionsverlag, Zurich 2014, ISBN 978-3-293-00477-1 .

Web links

Commons : Johanna van Gogh-Bonger  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Johanna van Gogh-Bonger in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Johanna van Gogh-Bonger in the bibliographic database WorldCat
• Van Gogh Letters letters van Gogh (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Irene Meyjes: Johanna van Gogh-Bonger: Art dealer? Scriptio, Deventer 2007, pp. 50f.
2. ↑ Irene Meyjes: Johanna van Gogh-Bonger: Art dealer? Scriptio, Deventer 2007, p. 57.
3. ^ Matthias Arnold: Vincent van Gogh. Biography . Kindler, Munich 1993, pp. 13-15.