Solar Dance

The Posthumous Life of Vincent Van Gogh

The story of Van Gogh’s life has often been told.  The story of his afterlife and unparalleled artistic and commercial success has not. 

Here is that story, one of high drama, passion, deceit, and monstrous violence, corresponding directly to the tumult of an age of horrendous war and incomprehensible devastation. 

At the centre of the story and storm – this solar dance – stands a gay dancer turned art impresario, Otto Wacker, who in the mid-1920s put thirty-three purported Van Goghs, authenticated by leading art experts, on the Berlin market.  Only after the works had entered major private and public collections around the world were they eventually questioned. 

The ensuing scandal and prolonged trial of Otto Wacker helped turn Van Gogh into both a household name and the most expensive artist of the day, but at the same time undermined all notions of authority and authenticity. The implications of this scandal of success do not stop here. 

In the Wacker-Van Gogh story, in its oozing ironies, is also the story of Weimar Germany, the rise of Hitler, and ultimately the fall of Communism. 

Modris Eksteins follows this remarkable tale about the corruption of authenticity to the fall of the Berlin Wall and en route discusses the major themes of the modern world where a culture of vitality, life, and art has overwhelmed one of authority, form, and law.  This is Van Gogh’s story, but it is also our story.