"The definitive biography for decades to come."
--Leo Jansen, curator, the Van Gogh Museum, and co-editor of Vincent van Gogh: The Complete Letters
"In their magisterial new biography,
Van Gogh: The Life, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith provide a guided tour through the personal world and work of that Dutch painter, shining a bright light on the evolution of his art. . . . What [the authors] capture so powerfully is Van Gogh's extraordinary will to learn, to persevere against the odds."
--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"Brilliant . . . Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith are the big-game hunters of modern art history. . . . [
Van Gogh] rushes along on a tide of research. . . . At once a model of scholarship and an emotive, pacy chunk of hagiography."
--Martin Herbert, The Daily Telegraph (London) "A tour de force . . . an enormous achievement . . . Reading his life story is like riding an endless roller coaster of delusional highs and lows. . . . [A] sweepingly authoritative, astonishingly textured book."
--Los Angeles Times
"Marvelous . . . [
Van Gogh] reads like a novel, full of suspense and intimate detail. . . . In beautiful prose, Naifeh and Smith argue convincingly for a subtler, more realistic evaluation of Van Gogh, and we all win."
--The Washington Post "Captivating . . . Winners of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for their biography of Jackson Pollock, [Naifeh and Smith] bring a booming authorial voice and boundless ingenuity to the task and have written a thoroughly engaging account of the Dutch painter. Drawing on Van Gogh's almost uniquely rich correspondence . . . the authors vividly reconstruct the intertwined stories of his life and his art, portraying him as a 'victim of his own fanatic heart.' . . . Their fine book has the potential not only to reinvigorate the broad base of popular interest that Van Gogh already enjoys but to introduce a whole new generation to one of art history's most remarkable creative spirits."
--Jonathan Lopez, The Wall Street Journal "Could very well be the definitive biography . . . In it we get a much fuller view of Van Gogh, owing to the decade Naifeh and Smith spent on research to create this scholarly and spellbinding work. . . . How pleased we should be that [these authors] have rendered so exquisitely and respectfully Van Gogh's short, intense, and wholly interesting life."
--Roberta Silman, The Boston Globe "This generation's definitive portrait of the great Dutch post-Impressionist . . . [The authors'] most important achievement is to produce a reckoning with Van Gogh's occasional 'madness' that doesn't lose sight of the lucidity and intelligence--the profound sanity--of his art."
--Richard Lacayo, Time