Johanna van Gogh-Bonger

Johanna van Gogh-Bonger
Johanna van Gogh-Bonger in 1889
Born	Johanna Gezina Bonger (1862-10-04)4 October 1862 Amsterdam, Netherlands
Died	2 September 1925(1925-09-02) (aged 62) Laren, Netherlands
Spouse(s)	Theo van Gogh (m. 1889; w. 1891) Johan Cohen Gosschalk (m. 1901; w. 1912)
Children	Vincent Willem van Gogh

Johanna Gezina "Jo" van Gogh-Bonger (4 October 1862 – 2 September 1925) was the wife of Theo van Gogh, art dealer, and the sister-in-law of the painter Vincent van Gogh and key player in the growth of Vincent's fame.

Johanna Gezina Bonger was born on 4 October 1862 in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. She was the fifth of seven children, the daughter of an insurance broker. The family was musical, holding evening performances of quartets, and Johanna became an accomplished piano player. Unlike her elder sisters, who helped out with household duties, Johanna, a "cheerful and lively child", was permitted to further her education by studying English, and earning the equivalent of a college degree. She stayed some months in London, working in the library of the British Museum.

From the age of seventeen she kept a detailed diary, which was to become a source of much information about Vincent van Gogh. At this time she also came under the influence of the non-conformist writer Multatuli.

At the age of twenty-two she became a teacher of English at a boarding school for girls at Elburg, later teaching at the High School for Girls at Utrecht. About this time while in Amsterdam she was introduced by her brother Andries to Theo van Gogh, brother of Vincent. One of the Van Gogh sisters described her as "smart and tender".

Theo became preoccupied with Johanna, and the following year paid a visit to Amsterdam to declare his love. Surprised and annoyed that a man she hardly knew should wish to marry her, she rejected him. However, she accepted his proposal the following year, and they were married in Amsterdam on 17 April 1889. Their son Vincent Willem, was born on 31 January 1890. Following Theo's death in January 1891, Johanna was left a widow with her infant son to support.

She was left with only an apartment in Paris filled with a few items of furniture and about 200 then valueless works of her brother-in-law Vincent. Although advised to dispose of the pictures, she instead moved back to the Netherlands, opened a boarding house in Bussum, a village 25 km from Amsterdam, and began to re-establish her artistic contacts. She had not kept her diary during her marriage, but resumed it, intending that her son should read it someday. To earn extra income she translated short stories from French and English into Dutch. In 1905, to the evident disapproval of her family, she was one of the founding members of a women's socialist movement, but did not allow this to interfere with raising her son.