Dear Theo: The Autobiography of Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh

Apr 2012 · Blackstone Audio Inc. · Narrated by Clive Chafer

About this audiobook

Each night, when the hours of painting and drawing were over, Vincent van Gogh put pen to paper and poured out his heart through letters to his beloved brother Theo, his confidant and companion. No thought was too small, no element of his craft too insignificant, no happening too trivial. It was all scrupulously recorded and shared. In these letters, Van Gogh reveals himself as artist and man. Even more than if he had purposely intended to tell his life story, Van Gogh’s letters lay bare his deepest feelings, as well as his everyday concerns and his views of the world of art. Irving Stone has edited the letters of Vincent in such a way as to retain every line of beauty, significance, and importance. “It is my humble opinion that Vincent was as great a writer and philosopher,” Stone says, “as he was a painter.”

Ratings and reviews

Dear Theo is a good audiobook, but the lack of dates for each letter written gives it an amorphous quality that makes it difficult to figure out which city he is n at every given time. The author's rather posh British accent also contrasts with my idea of the kind of rough, man without airs image of Van Gogh that I have always had in my head. Nonetheless, the eloquence and sensitivity in VIncent's correspondence with his brother more than makes up for any failings in the book's flaws in production. It makes a great companion to the movie At Eternity's Gate too.

About the author

Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter whose work, notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty, and bold color, had a far-reaching influence on twentieth-century art. Van Gogh spent his early adulthood working for a firm of art dealers, traveling between The Hague, London, and Paris, after which he taught for a time in England. He painted his first major work, The Potato Eaters, in 1885, and after moving to the south of France, he developed the unique and highly recognizable style that became fully realized by 1888. Although he painted around nine hundred works in ten years, he was plagued by bouts of mental illness and ultimately took his own life in 1890.

Irving Stone (1903–1989) took his place as the world-acknowledged master of the biographical novel with the publication of Lust for Life. Tremendous subsequent successes such as The Agony and the Ecstasy, Passions of the Mind, and The Origin, to name but a few, have achieved the rare combination of bestselling popularity and high critical success.

Clive Chafer is a professional actor, director, producer, and theater instructor. Originally from England and educated at Leeds and Exeter universities, he has performed and directed at many theaters in the San Francisco area, where he makes his home, and elsewhere in the US. In 1993 he founded TheatreFIRST, Oakland’s professional theater company, where he served as artistic director until 2008.