About the Author

A graduate of Harvard Law School, Steven Naifeh studied art history at Princeton and Harvard's Fogg Art Museum. Together with his late husband and co-author Gregory White Smith, he is the author of five New York Times bestsellers, including Van Gogh- The Life. Their biography Jackson Pollock- An American Saga won the Pulitzer Prize and inspired the Academy Award-winning film Pollock as well as John Updike's novel Seek My Face. Naifeh, also an artist whose works are included in numerous museum collections, has been profiled in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and USA Today and has appeared twice on 60 Minutes. He lives in South Carolina.

Reviews

“A captivating look inside the mind of Vincent van Gogh . . . Naifeh lucidly traces the painter’s relationship with everything from 17th century works by Rembrandt (who, like Van Gogh, had a penchant for ‘obsessively’ painting himself) to experimenting with the Pointillist dots of Georges Seurat (which, Naifeh writes, ‘freed Van Gogh from the unforgiving linearity of realism’) to his fascination with Japanese woodblock prints. . . . While illuminating the life of one of the world’s most significant artists, this also sheds a broader light on the fascinating nuances of the creative process.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A celebration of one of the world’s greatest artists and the works that inspired him. . . . Handsome . . . with learned explanations, dozens of beautiful reproductions, and an especially moving essay about the author and his husband of 40 years, scholar Gregory White Smith, who died in 2014, and their love of art. An accessible, heartfelt introduction to Van Gogh’s work and life.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Van Gogh and the Artists He Loved is a profusely illustrated musée imaginaire, representing Vincent’s ideal museum. It is a volume which the artist would have loved to have had by his bedside table. Naifeh, along with his companion the late Gregory White Smith, was the co-author of the 2011 best-selling biography Van Gogh: The Life—so he draws upon great accumulated knowledge.”—The Art Newspaper
 
“Continuing Steven Naifeh’s work that began with the landmark biography Van Gogh: The Life, his important new book, Van Gogh and the Artists He Loved, illuminates Van Gogh’s remarkable journey to becoming an artist. Richly illustrated, it inspires us to look at him and his art afresh by revealing his deep admiration and affection for the artists who inspired him.”—Dr. Chris Stolwijk, general director, RKD–Netherlands Institute for Art History, and co-author of Vincent’s Choice and Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night

“Vincent van Gogh—that great modern original—revered the earlier masters. In this illuminating book, Steven Naifeh juxtaposes individual Van Gogh paintings with works by more traditional artists whose subjects or styles inspired him. Again and again we see—beautifully stated—what makes the modern modern. But we also come to see, paradoxically, a less isolated Van Gogh. He’s knit into the community of a great tradition.”—Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan, Pulitzer Prize–winning authors of de Kooning: An American Master and Francis Bacon: Revelations