Vincent van Gogh sold one painting in his lifetime. When he died, his brother Theo inherited hundreds of canvases nobody wanted — and when Theo died six months later, the entire collection passed to his widow, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger. She was a young mother with no background in art, and she spent the next twenty-five years systematically promoting, lending, and exhibiting the paintings until Vincent van Gogh was recognized as one of the greatest artists who ever lived.

This episode tells the overlooked story of the woman who single-handedly created Van Gogh's posthumous reputation, tracing her methodical campaign to transform an unknown dead painter into an icon of modern art.

• Jo's brief marriage to Theo van Gogh and the inheritance of hundreds of unsold paintings
• Her systematic strategy of lending to exhibitions, publis ...