Schuffenecker’s Sunflowers: And Other van Gogh Forgeries

Hanspeter Born is a Swiss investigative reporter and author. As chief foreign correspondent for the Zurich Weltwoche he covered major stories like the downfall of Ferdinand Marcos, the civil war in Nicaragua, the fall of the Berlin wall, the wars in former Yugoslavia and the American presidential campaigns since 1980. In the book Für die Richtigkeit Kurt Waldheim examined the former UN-secretary general’s wartime past (Schneekluth, 1987). Born’s account of a Swiss murder case Mord in Kehrsatz (ABC-Weltwoche Verlag1989) led to a retrial and made it to the top of the Swiss Bestseller List. With Benoit Landais, he wrote Die verschwundene Katze, an investigation into the forging of van Gogh’s Jardin de Daubigny (Echtzeit, Basel 2009). His essay ＂Why Greene was Angry at Shakespeare＂ was published by Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England (2012). Benoît Landais is a French writer and van Gogh specialist. As the son of Hubert Landais, the former Director of the French National Museums, he grew up steeped in art. Landais dropped out of university to become a labourer in a factory in Grenoble and to engage in political activities. He also built a 14 meter steel-boat and in 1986 he sailed a catamaran around the world. In the award winning book J’essaie la Mer (Editions Ecole des Loisirs, 1989) he wrote about his 16 months voyage following up with a seafaring novel Délire à bord (Ancre de Marine, 1996). By 1990 he had settled down in Holland to devote his time to the full-time study of the life and works of Vincent van Gogh. His research convinced him that many of the paintings attributed to Vincent were not by the Dutchman’s own hand. In 1999 he published his ground-breaking book on one of the first van Gogh forgers, L’audace des bandits - L’affaire Gachet (Editions du Layeur). Another of Landais’ books Van Gogh: Original oder Fälschung? Der Streit um die Sammlung Marijnissen was published in June 2004 by Rogner und Bernhard in Hamburg.