For properly over a century it was a household secret: Vincent van Gogh’s sister-in-law, Jo Bonger, had a brief relationship with the Dutch Impressionist painter Isaac Israëls. Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum has simply revealed the surviving 103 letters despatched by Israëls to Bonger, and is presenting a focussed exhibition about their “intimate friendship”.
Israëls, Portrait of Jo van Gogh-Bonger (1895) and Self-portrait carrying a black Hat (1894-98)
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Basis)
Captivated by Vincent: The Intimate Friendship of Jo van Gogh-Bonger and Isaac Israëls (till 25 January 2026) isn’t just concerning the relationship, however equally importantly it covers its impression of Van Gogh’s artwork on Israëls. In a shocking transfer, the latter depicted a few of Van Gogh’s most essential work within the backgrounds of a sequence of portraits.
Israëls vividly described this observe as “Vincenting”. Twelve of those 17 portraits have been introduced collectively for the very first time, whereas a 5 stay in unknown personal collections.
Isaac Israëls (1865–1934), the son of the distinguished artist Jozef Israëls (1824-1911), first met Bonger briefly in September 1889 via her newly-married husband Theo van Gogh, Vincent’s brother. Vincent then died by suicide in July 1890 and Theo in January 1891, in all probability from syphilis. It was not till 1895 that Bonger and Israëls received to know one another properly, when he was aged 29 and he or she 32.
Israëls in his studio, Amsterdam (1903)
Atelier Herz, Amsterdam
Their relationship turned “intimate” later that 12 months. Because the Van Gogh Museum researcher Hans Luijten, the writer of the definitive biography of Bonger, explains, it was briefly “a bodily relationship”. Bonger confided in her diary on 3 November: “It was simply an impulse, we performed with fireplace.” She then added: “However there’s no trifling with love.” The next three strains have been bodily minimize out of her diary, both by herself or her son. What she eliminated has been misplaced perpetually.
Jo Bonger’s diary, 3 November 1895, exhibiting the place the three strains have been excised
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Basis)
Bonger fell in love with Israëls, and though he harboured comparable emotions, he was reluctant to make a dedication, as an alternative desirous to retain his independence. In August 1895 Israëls wrote to her that “I’m adrift at sea buffeted by a number of hurricanes”. She, on her facet, felt uneasy concerning the intimacy, primarily due to considerations concerning the impression on her five-year-old son Vincent (named after the artist). It was an uneasy relationship.
In August 1896 Israëls despatched a letter from the seaside, principally obscured with a sketch of a younger lady on the seaside at Scheveningen, simply outdoors The Hague. Luijten means that Israëls was implying he was maybe a greater artist than a author.
Israëls, Woman on the Seaside Leaning on a Spade in a letter to Bonger, August 1897
His romantic relationship with Bonger ended within the late summer time of 1897, two years after it had begun. Bonger appears to have made the choice, though Israëls made little effort to withstand it. In 1901 Bonger went on to marry the artist Johan Cohen Gosschalk, however he suffered in poor health well being and died in 1912.
Bonger and Israëls received in touch once more after Gosschalk’s demise. In 1914 Bonger’s 24-year-old son Vincent and Israëls each occurred to be in London on the similar time. It was then that Israëls painted Vincent studying a newspaper in a café in Hyde Park. This image was given to Bonger who, in alternate, gave Israëls a Van Gogh portray, most probably the Olive Grove (September 1889, now personal assortment, Zurich). Through the interval between 1915 and 1920 a deep friendship developed between Israëls and Bonger.
Israëls, Vincent Willem van Gogh in Hyde Park, London (1914)
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Basis)
Vincenting
Within the winter of 1915-16 Israëls requested if he might borrow three of Van Gogh’s best work: The Yellow Home (September 1888), Van Gogh’s Bed room (October 1888) and the Sunflowers with a yellow background (it was both the August 1888 first model, now at London’s Nationwide Gallery, or an analogous January 1889 one, now on the Van Gogh Museum). The three work have been saved for various intervals, however all have been returned by 1920.
Israëls included the Van Gogh compositions within the backgrounds of 16 painted portraits and one drawing. Writing to Bonger in February 1916 he invented a time period to explain the insertion of Van Gogh work in his personal work. “I’m nonetheless very busy Vincenten (Vincenting),” he wrote.
In two of those work a bare-breasted mannequin is portrayed, whereas In one other the girl is smoking. The Van Gogh portray which figured most continuously was the Sunflowers, which should have suffered from tobacco grime throughout its years with Israëls, since he himself was a heavy smoker. These photos are additionally fascinating in exhibiting how the Sunflowers was then framed, in a easy white body.
Israëls, Portrait of Rosalie Zélander-Caffé (1917) and Lady Standing in entrance of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers (1915-20)
Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem and Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Basis)
With Woman Studying on a Couch (1915-16), Israëls included two extra of the Van Gogh work that he had borrowed: a part of The Yellow Home may be seen on the left and Van Gogh’s Bed room on the correct.
Israëls, Woman Studying on a Couch (1915-16)
Non-public assortment
The entire “Vincenting” work are of feminine figures (both nameless fashions or pals), with a single exception. He as soon as painted his cousin Isaac Cohen, a legislation professor, together with his spouse Jacqueline.
Israëls, Isaac Bennie Cohen and His Spouse Jacqueline Wilhelmine Longépée (1915-16)
Non-public assortment
So why did Israëls embrace Van Gogh work in portraits which seem to have little to do with the nice artist? Luijten means that the Van Goghs have been added “to make the figures and objects within the foreground extra outstanding by emphatically contrasting the colors via utilizing, for instance, brilliant pink, blue and purple”. He provides, tellingly, that Israëls additionally needed to make the works ”extra interesting by linking them to Van Gogh”, who had already turn into well-known. In different phrases, the works turned extra marketable.
Apparently, the borrowed work appear to have exerted little affect on the strategy of Israëls. By this time, then in his early fifties, Israëls painted in a unfastened fashion and is also known as a “Dutch Impressionist”.
On New 12 months’s Day 1924, the 12 months earlier than Bonger’s demise, Israëls praised her decades-long loyalty: “You actually are a real buddy,” he wrote. This is able to be the final recognized letter he despatched to her—and sadly none of Bonger’s letters to him survive.
Bonger died on 2 September 1925, aged 62. Shortly afterwards, her son, Vincent, commissioned Israëls to color a ultimate portrait of his mom. Within the background Israëls added a fuzzy image, which seems to characterize the robust blue sky of Van Gogh’s The Yellow Home. Though he made a sequence of portraits of Bonger, this was the one one through which he included a Van Gogh.
Israëls, Portrait of Jo van Gogh-Bonger (1926), with the deep blue sky of Van Gogh’s The Yellow Home within the background
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Basis)
Israëls died in 1934. He by no means married, though from the Twenties he had a long-term relationship with Sophie de Vries, who lived with him and have become his muse.
Martin Bailey is a number one Van Gogh specialist and particular correspondent for The Artwork Newspaper. He has curated exhibitions on the Barbican Artwork Gallery, Compton Verney/Nationwide Gallery of Scotland and Tate Britain.
Martin Bailey’s current Van Gogh books
Martin has written a variety of bestselling books on Van Gogh’s years in France: The Sunflowers Are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh’s Masterpiece (Frances Lincoln 2013, UK and US), Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence (Frances Lincoln 2016, UK and US), Starry Night time: Van Gogh on the Asylum (White Lion Publishing 2018, UK and US) and Van Gogh’s Finale: Auvers and the Artist’s Rise to Fame (Frances Lincoln 2021, UK and US). The Sunflowers are Mine (2024, UK and US) and Van Gogh’s Finale (2024, UK and US) are additionally now out there in a extra compact paperback format.
His different current books embrace Dwelling with Vincent van Gogh: The Properties & Landscapes that formed the Artist (White Lion Publishing 2019, UK and US), which offers an summary of the artist’s life. The Illustrated Provence Letters of Van Gogh has been reissued (Batsford 2021, UK and US). My Buddy Van Gogh/Emile Bernard offers the primary English translation of Bernard’s writings on Van Gogh (David Zwirner Books 2023, UKand US).
To contact Martin Bailey, please e-mail vangogh@theartnewspaper.com
Please word that he doesn’t undertake authentications.
Discover all of Martin’s adventures with Van Gogh right here
