Vincent van Gogh is one of the most important artists in the history of mankind.
His style of painting was revolutionary, his brushwork unique, his play of colors unequaled.
But Van Gogh was also a difficult character. Insecure, manic, extreme. The painter has always lived and worked on the border between genius and madness. And this madness drove him to suicide with a death wish. This has been the official thesis of experts for over 100 years.
Steven Naifeh, Pulitzer Prize winner and van Gogh biographer, contradicts this view. He wants to prove that van Gogh didn’t shoot himself, but that he was shot by a 16-year-old boy named René Secrétan, who always carried a gun and liked to wave it around, dressed in a costume. cowboy. Perhaps, he theorized, van Gogh was mistakenly shot.
Naifeh has collected new circumstantial evidence that speaks against a suicide. But how valid is this evidence, which tells a completely different story of van Gogh’s death? Florence Kasumba is investigating Naifeh’s complaint.
She is supported by experts in the field of investigations, including Prof. Thomas Gundlach (Hamburg Police Academy), Prof. Dr. med. Knut Albrecht (Brandenburg State Institute of Forensic Medicine), criminal psychologist Lydia Benecke and military historian Dr. Stephen Bull.
Did anyone have an interest in assassinating the lone artist? Did he have envious people, adversaries, enemies? Or was it a terrible accident at the end? Surprising details from the past put the death of century painter Vincent van Gogh in a whole new light.