Steven Naifeh
Author of Van Gogh: The Life
About the Author
Steven Naifeh was born in Tehran, Iran, June 19, 1952, to parents in the U.S. Diplomatic Service. He attended Princeton University receiving an A.B. summa cum laude in American History, Harvard Law School receiving a J.D., Harvard Graduate School of School of Arts and Sciences, receiving both an show more M.A. and a PhD, and University of South Carolina receiving a Ph.D. in Humane Letters. Naifeh co-authored, with Gregory White Smith, Jackson Pollock: An American Saga which received the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1991 and was a finalist for National Book Award Nonfiction in 1990. He and Smith also co-authored Final Justice which was an Edgar Allan Poe Award Finalist in Fact Crime in 1994. Naifeh's other books include Culture Making (Princeton University Press, 1978); Gene Davis (The Arts Publisher, 1982); New York Times bestsellers, The Mormon Murders (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988) and, with Phil Donahue, The Human Animal (Simon & Schuster, 1985); and Vincent van Gogh, with Gregory White Smith (Random House, 2011). (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Works by Steven Naifeh
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Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Naifeh, Steven
- Birthdate
- 1952
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Princeton University
Harvard University
University of South Carolina Aiken - Occupations
- artist
- Relationships
- Smith, Gregory White (partner)
- Short biography
- Steven Naifeh is an Arab-American both by lineage (his grandparents were born in a part of Syria that is now Lebanon and Jordan) and by upbringing. As the son of diplomats, he spread his childhood throughout the Middle East — in Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Oman as well as the U.A.E. He also lived in Pakistan and Nigeria. Naifeh, together with Gregory White Smith, has also written nine additional nonfiction books, including the New York Times bestsellers, The Mormon Murders (New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988) and, with Phil Donahue, The Human Animal (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985).
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Tehran, Iran
- Places of residence
- Aiken, South Carolina, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- USA
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Reviews
By far the saddest biography I have ever read, VAN GOGH is also one of the most stirring and superbly detailed biographies I have ever read. That Vincent van Gogh's life was such a brutally painful and difficult one should not deter readers from embarking on this massive journey, yet the fact that a 951-page book reaches page 750 before the subject has what could genuinely be called a period of happiness is a testament to the skill with which the book is written, for despite the utterly show more depressing nature of Van Gogh's life, the authors make it a terrifically compelling one to read about. The amount of detail, in no small part but not entirely due to the prodigious correspondence that exists between Vincent and his brother Theo, is as complete as any biography could (or should) aspire to, and by the end of the book, one feels as though as though one has lived alongside Vincent through almost his entire life. The book approaches yet manages to skirt oppressiveness of detail, a superb feat given the consistency of the arc of Van Gogh's tortured life, and while the repetitious nature of Van Gogh's behavior and follies becomes almost as tiresome as it must have for his family, there is nothing in the book that should have been left out. The authors, too, have a splendid sense of art and how Van Gogh's mind was reflected in his art, and all this is described with clarity and, and at the same time, poetry. I wept as I reached the end of Vincent's life, in part because it was such a sad and unhappy life, but also because by the book's end, I felt as though I knew and understood the man behind some of the greatest art in history. Such should be the goal of every biography. show less
A beautiful piece of work, and a labor of love in more ways than one. Artist, art historian, and biographer Steven Naifeh has put together an opulent assemblage of chapters discussing Vincent Van Gogh's artistic influences: artists and works that delighted him, taught him, and inspired him, from academics and old masters like Gerome, Holbein, Rembrandt, and Ruisdael; through locals like his cousin Mauve and regional schools like the Barbizon painters and the Hague School; to the show more Impressionist, Symbolist, Cloisonnist and other contemporaries like Gauguin, Lautrec, Signac, and Serusier, as well as Japanese prints and English magazine illustrations. Arranged thematically, Naifeh demonstrates how these other artists influenced and dazzled Vincent in how he saw, experienced and painted human figures, flowers, landscapes, skies, seas, trees, books, and religious belief. Naifeh expertly shows us unexpected and wonderfully apt correspondences, such as Luke Fildes's poignant drawing of Charles Dickens's empty chair after his death, and Vincent's lurid armchair vacated by Gauguin after their rupture; or a Decamps "Orientalist" courtyard opposite Vincent's blazing Arles "Yellow House." Many of the gorgeous color plates are captioned with comments from Vincent himself, underlining his thoughts about them.
As I paged through the book, admiring many pictures I was not familiar with, I began to notice... wait, Naifeh and his partner Gregory White Smith own this painting? And this one, and that one, and that print? Holy smoke... In a final chapter, Naifeh describes his ventures with Smith (in work, art, and life - they were together for 40 years until Smith's death from a brain tumor in 2014), in researching and writing their acclaimed biographies of Jackson Pollock and Van Gogh, and their tiptoeing into collecting. Clearly they had more money than he modestly cares to admit, but they also had taste, knowledge, and passion. So this book is also a showcase for the wonderful works they have collected. I'm also quietly glad to find someone who seems to share my furtive admiration of Gerome. (In spite of the often icky subject matter, nobody can paint sighthounds or big cats like Gerome!)
Though Naifeh credits White with the writer's gift, his own language often sings with color and admiration. The plates are rich, plentiful, well-arranged. This volume is a pure pleasure and belongs in any art history collection. show less
As I paged through the book, admiring many pictures I was not familiar with, I began to notice... wait, Naifeh and his partner Gregory White Smith own this painting? And this one, and that one, and that print? Holy smoke... In a final chapter, Naifeh describes his ventures with Smith (in work, art, and life - they were together for 40 years until Smith's death from a brain tumor in 2014), in researching and writing their acclaimed biographies of Jackson Pollock and Van Gogh, and their tiptoeing into collecting. Clearly they had more money than he modestly cares to admit, but they also had taste, knowledge, and passion. So this book is also a showcase for the wonderful works they have collected. I'm also quietly glad to find someone who seems to share my furtive admiration of Gerome. (In spite of the often icky subject matter, nobody can paint sighthounds or big cats like Gerome!)
Though Naifeh credits White with the writer's gift, his own language often sings with color and admiration. The plates are rich, plentiful, well-arranged. This volume is a pure pleasure and belongs in any art history collection. show less
Vincent Van Gogh is one of the Western world's most well-known artists, and works such as Starry Night and The Bedroom are icons of the post-impressionist transition. Equally well-known are the stories about his life and personality, the infamous mutilation of his ear, and his close yet tumultuous relationship with his brother, Theo. Naifeh and Smith's new biography both explores in detail the development of Vincent's art and brings new light to the widely accepted version of Theo's life, show more which is largely based on Irving Stone's fictionalized biography and subsequent movie, [Lust for Life].
Ten years in the making, Van Gogh: A Life is a masterpiece of meticulous research and detailed writing. The authors had unparalleled access to the archives of the Van Gogh Museum, as well as the Museum's new translation of Van Gogh's letters. The only previous English translation was by Vincent's sister-in-law, who of course had a certain agenda. In addition to authoritative research and documentation (over 5000 pages of notes available at www.vangoghbiography.com), the authors bravely contradict some of the most widely held beliefs about Vincent's life and death. They do so in the full knowledge that there will be controversy, and document their reasoning so that others may follow their line of thought. While paying homage to the scholarship that has come before, they forge ahead into new territory.
The book is divided into three parts: The Early Years (1853-1880), The Dutch Years (1880-1886), and The French Years (1886-1890). I delved into the first part with eager enthusiasm and was not disappointed. Vincent's childhood was scarred by his relationships with his cold, class-conscious mother and his domineering pastor father. People found Vincent odd, unsocial, and erratic even in his youth. Unable to make friends, unsatisfied with any of the schools he attended, Vincent became increasingly cyclical in his emotions: thwarted at some task or project, he would become increasingly angry and arrogant until he failed and then fell into a fit of despair and depression. Then he would latch onto some new, grander project and frenetically try to persuade everyone to his new passion.
I found reading The Dutch Years to be more of a struggle. The pattern of Vincent's emotional life played over and over, even as he moved (or was evicted) from place to place and passion to passion. His relationship with his brother, Theo, had solidified into complete financial dependence and the same cycle of anger, guilt, and passion that dominated his emotional life. His art was stuck in a dark rut, and he continued to refuse to view Impressionist art or explore the ideas of his contemporary artists. For a couple of hundred pages, I despaired of finishing this 900 page tome.
Then I reached The French Years, and my reading picked up pace. Vincent finally moved to Paris to live with his brother, a financial imperative, and for the first time began interacting with the Impressionists and their successors. Key relationships were formed, broken, and reformed, and his art began to show the effects of exposure to new ideas and methods. Then he reached Arles and began to paint in his own impassioned way, expressing his emotions through the wild brush strokes and colors that would eventually make him famous. These last few years were extremely productive, even while he fought ill health and the escalation of his disease (now believed to have been temporal lobe epilepsy). His greatest dream of all, a brotherhood of artists living together at the Yellow House, resulted in a brief co-habitation with Paul Gauguin, and ended in tragedy. The last year of his life was spent in asylums and in and out of lucidity, yet he continued to paint. His work garnered some acclaim at the very end of his life, but he died denying that he was worthy of that praise.
There are many things to praise about this new biography: its detail and authority, the way the authors weave Vincent's own words from his letters into the text, the occasional eye-catching turn of phrase. One thing that I found particularly interesting was the focus on Vincent's expansive reading and how it informed his life and his work. At various times, the following authors played an especially important role in his thinking: George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, Guy de Maupassant, and Emile Zola; but he read widely and deeply on many subjects, especially religion and the history of art. He used the books he read as a source of solace, inspiration, support for his arguments, vindication, and self-definition. He even painted books into his art as a way to make a point or convey a message.
Overall, I think Van Gogh: The Life is an important contribution to art scholarship and well worth reading, despite its length and sometimes uneven delivery. It's a book that leaves you wanting to know even more, and I found myself browsing the web for more information on fellow artists, various movements, and especially more examples of Vincent's paintings. Of help to me in this last was a small book of Van Gogh's drawings and paintings entitled [Van Gogh] by Josephine Cutts and James Smith, published by MetroBooks. Arranged somewhat chronologically, it supplemented the plates included in the biography. show less
Ten years in the making, Van Gogh: A Life is a masterpiece of meticulous research and detailed writing. The authors had unparalleled access to the archives of the Van Gogh Museum, as well as the Museum's new translation of Van Gogh's letters. The only previous English translation was by Vincent's sister-in-law, who of course had a certain agenda. In addition to authoritative research and documentation (over 5000 pages of notes available at www.vangoghbiography.com), the authors bravely contradict some of the most widely held beliefs about Vincent's life and death. They do so in the full knowledge that there will be controversy, and document their reasoning so that others may follow their line of thought. While paying homage to the scholarship that has come before, they forge ahead into new territory.
The book is divided into three parts: The Early Years (1853-1880), The Dutch Years (1880-1886), and The French Years (1886-1890). I delved into the first part with eager enthusiasm and was not disappointed. Vincent's childhood was scarred by his relationships with his cold, class-conscious mother and his domineering pastor father. People found Vincent odd, unsocial, and erratic even in his youth. Unable to make friends, unsatisfied with any of the schools he attended, Vincent became increasingly cyclical in his emotions: thwarted at some task or project, he would become increasingly angry and arrogant until he failed and then fell into a fit of despair and depression. Then he would latch onto some new, grander project and frenetically try to persuade everyone to his new passion.
I found reading The Dutch Years to be more of a struggle. The pattern of Vincent's emotional life played over and over, even as he moved (or was evicted) from place to place and passion to passion. His relationship with his brother, Theo, had solidified into complete financial dependence and the same cycle of anger, guilt, and passion that dominated his emotional life. His art was stuck in a dark rut, and he continued to refuse to view Impressionist art or explore the ideas of his contemporary artists. For a couple of hundred pages, I despaired of finishing this 900 page tome.
Then I reached The French Years, and my reading picked up pace. Vincent finally moved to Paris to live with his brother, a financial imperative, and for the first time began interacting with the Impressionists and their successors. Key relationships were formed, broken, and reformed, and his art began to show the effects of exposure to new ideas and methods. Then he reached Arles and began to paint in his own impassioned way, expressing his emotions through the wild brush strokes and colors that would eventually make him famous. These last few years were extremely productive, even while he fought ill health and the escalation of his disease (now believed to have been temporal lobe epilepsy). His greatest dream of all, a brotherhood of artists living together at the Yellow House, resulted in a brief co-habitation with Paul Gauguin, and ended in tragedy. The last year of his life was spent in asylums and in and out of lucidity, yet he continued to paint. His work garnered some acclaim at the very end of his life, but he died denying that he was worthy of that praise.
There are many things to praise about this new biography: its detail and authority, the way the authors weave Vincent's own words from his letters into the text, the occasional eye-catching turn of phrase. One thing that I found particularly interesting was the focus on Vincent's expansive reading and how it informed his life and his work. At various times, the following authors played an especially important role in his thinking: George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, Guy de Maupassant, and Emile Zola; but he read widely and deeply on many subjects, especially religion and the history of art. He used the books he read as a source of solace, inspiration, support for his arguments, vindication, and self-definition. He even painted books into his art as a way to make a point or convey a message.
Overall, I think Van Gogh: The Life is an important contribution to art scholarship and well worth reading, despite its length and sometimes uneven delivery. It's a book that leaves you wanting to know even more, and I found myself browsing the web for more information on fellow artists, various movements, and especially more examples of Vincent's paintings. Of help to me in this last was a small book of Van Gogh's drawings and paintings entitled [Van Gogh] by Josephine Cutts and James Smith, published by MetroBooks. Arranged somewhat chronologically, it supplemented the plates included in the biography. show less
Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith galvanized readers with their astonishing Jackson Pollock: An American Saga, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for biography, a book acclaimed for its miraculous research and overwhelming narrative power. Now Naifeh and Smith have written another tour de force—an exquisitely detailed, compellingly readable, and ultimately heartbreaking portrait of creative genius Vincent van Gogh.
Working with the full cooperation of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Naifeh show more and Smith have accessed a wealth of previously untapped materials. While drawing liberally from the artist’s famously eloquent letters, they have also delved into hundreds of unpublished family correspondences, illuminating with poignancy the wanderings of Van Gogh’s troubled, restless soul. Naifeh and Smith bring a crucial understanding to the larger-than-life mythology of this great artist—his early struggles to find his place in the world; his intense relationship with his brother Theo; his impetus for turning to brush and canvas; and his move to Provence, where in a brief burst of incandescent productivity he painted some of the best-loved works in Western art.
The authors also shed new light on many unexplored aspects of Van Gogh’s inner world: his deep immersion in literature and art; his erratic and tumultuous romantic life; and his bouts of depression and mental illness.
Though countless books have been written about Van Gogh, and though the broad outlines of his tragedy have long inhabited popular culture, no serious, ambitious examination of his life has been attempted in more than seventy years. Naifeh and Smith have re-created Van Gogh’s life with an astounding vividness and psychological acuity that bring a completely new and sympathetic understanding to this unique artistic genius whose signature images of sunflowers and starry nights have won a permanent place in the human imagination. show less
Working with the full cooperation of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Naifeh show more and Smith have accessed a wealth of previously untapped materials. While drawing liberally from the artist’s famously eloquent letters, they have also delved into hundreds of unpublished family correspondences, illuminating with poignancy the wanderings of Van Gogh’s troubled, restless soul. Naifeh and Smith bring a crucial understanding to the larger-than-life mythology of this great artist—his early struggles to find his place in the world; his intense relationship with his brother Theo; his impetus for turning to brush and canvas; and his move to Provence, where in a brief burst of incandescent productivity he painted some of the best-loved works in Western art.
The authors also shed new light on many unexplored aspects of Van Gogh’s inner world: his deep immersion in literature and art; his erratic and tumultuous romantic life; and his bouts of depression and mental illness.
Though countless books have been written about Van Gogh, and though the broad outlines of his tragedy have long inhabited popular culture, no serious, ambitious examination of his life has been attempted in more than seventy years. Naifeh and Smith have re-created Van Gogh’s life with an astounding vividness and psychological acuity that bring a completely new and sympathetic understanding to this unique artistic genius whose signature images of sunflowers and starry nights have won a permanent place in the human imagination. show less
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