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# Yet Another Van Gogh Theory: Suicide or Murder
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/van-gogh-theory-suicide-murder/
- Published: 2011-10-17T15:21:38.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:02:33.000Z
- Description: Maybe people are watching too much Law & Order, but the obsession with Vincent van Gogh and his ear, relationship with Paul Gauguin and tortured life are getting a little too much. Now, the latest theory … he was shot by teenage boys from Paris pretending to be American cowboys.
- Author: Hrag Vartanian
- Tags: News, #image-position-hidden, Art Crime, Vincent van Gogh, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2025-11-17 09:23 (2009-2011)

[![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2011/10/vangogh-60minutes-home.jpg "vangogh-60minutes-HOME")](http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7384904n&tag=contentMain;contentAux&ref=hyperallergic.com)

Maybe people are watching too much *Law & Order*, but the obsession with Vincent van Gogh and his ear, relationship with Paul Gauguin and tortured life are getting a little too much.

So, the authors of a [Pulitzer Prize-winning bio](http://books.google.com/books?id=DYZQAAAAMAAJ&q=nafieh+smith+pollock&dq=nafieh+smith+pollock&hl=en&ei=J0acToeULcXz0gH5wczPBA&sa=X&oi=book%5Fresult&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAQ&ref=hyperallergic.com) of Jackson Pollock are suggesting that artist didn’t kill himself but was shot by two teenage boys from Paris who were acting like Americans cowboys … *quel twist!* *60 Minutes* had a whole program on the topic last night and the video is below.

BBC has [this](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15333801?ref=hyperallergic.com) to say:

> On page 851 the authors start to make their case that Vincent Van Gogh was shot by a 16-year-old boy called Rene Secretan, who had a history of tormenting the troubled artist.

And the Associated Press [spoke](http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/van-gogh-museum-unconvinced-by-new-theory-painter-didnt-commit-suicide-but-was-shot-by-2-boys/2011/10/17/gIQAuoKDrL%5Fstory.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) to the van Gogh museum, and their experts are still “unconvinced.”

How will any of this impact our understanding of van Gogh? Not much, we already knew he was a moody masochist or sorts.