Monday, October 17, 2011

Museum Unconvinced by New Van Gogh Death Theory

Two American authors believe Vincent van Gogh was fatally shot by two teenagers and did not die from self-inflicted wounds, but the new theory won a skeptical reception from experts at the museum dedicated to the 19th century Dutch master. A book by Pulitzer prize-winning authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, "Van Gogh, The Life," concludes that Van Gogh, who suffered chronic depression, claimed on his deathbed to have shot himself to protect the boys. "Covering up his own murder," said Naifeh in an interview broadcast Sunday on the U.S. network CBS's "60 Minutes." Leo Jansen, curator of the Van Gogh Museum and editor of the artist's letters, said the biography is a "great book," but experts have doubts about the authors' theory of his death in 1890. [more...Watch the 60 Minutes special.