“Ours is essentially a digital age, so we refuse to take it digitally” ¬– Van Gogh’s letters in print or on screen?

Vincent van Gogh was a prolific letter writer. In some eight hundred eloquent letters he expressed his personal troubles, his ideas about art, literature, life and eternity, and more. Rather than the troubled, erratic and impulsive genius that the myth has made of him he comes across as a sincere idealist who worked systematically, with a strong sense of duty and discipline, to create artworks that he hoped would contribute to the well-being of mankind.

Van Gogh’s fascinating correspondence has been available in print for more than a century. In 2009 a digital, fully annotated edition of the letters was published online. It was very well received and has been consulted over a million times since then. The six-volume printed version, published simultaneously, was sold out in no time. A selection of the letters, compiled by the editors, was published in subsequent years in eight languages and more will follow.

My contribution will address the options we have and the choices we make when publishing artists’ letters for different audiences such as the general public, art lovers, students, art professionals and scholars.