 The letters were published in three volumes in 1914 by Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, Theo's widow, who also generously supported most of the early Van Gogh exhibitions with loans from the artist's estate.Publication of the letters helped spread the compelling mystique of Vincent van Gogh, the intense and dedicated painter who suffered for his art and died young, throughout Europe and the rest of the world.His fame reached its first peak in Austria and Germany before World War I (influencing a whole generation of German artists), and at the end of World War I in Switzerland.