This is the story of one of the world’s most iconic images. Martin Bailey explains why Van Gogh painted a series of sunflower still lifes in Provence. He then explores the subsequent adventures of the seven pictures, and their influence on modern art. Through the Sunflowers, we gain fresh insights into Van Gogh’s life and his path to fame. Based on original research, the book is packed with discoveries – throwing new light on the legendary artist.

Schuffenecker? An artist hardly anyone has heard of. And yet he painted some of the most celebrated and expensive “van Goghs” ever sold. Most of his fakes are still considered genuine paintings by the great Vincent van Gogh. Such icons as the Sunflowers, sold by Christie's for a world record price in 1987, the Arlèsienne in New York's Met, and the much admired “self-portrait” showing the artist with bandaged ear and pipe are, in fact, the handiwork of Emile Schuffenecker (1851 – 1934).

We ask God to involve himself providentially in our lives, yet we cherish our freedom to choose and act. Employing both theological reflection and philosophical analysis, the author explores how to resolve the interesting and provocative puzzles arising from these seemingly conflicting desires. He inquires what sovereignty means and how sovereigns balance their power and prerogatives with the free responses of their subjects. Since we are physically embodied in a physical world, we also need to ask how this is compatible with our being free agents. Providence raises questions about God's fundamental attributes. The author considers what it means to affirm God's goodness as logically contingent, how being almighty interfaces with God's self-limitation, and the persistent problems that arise from claiming that God foreknows the future. Discussion of these divine properties spills over into the related issues of why God allows, or even causes, pain and suffering; why, if God is all-knowing, we need to petition God repeatedly and encounter so many unanswered prayers; and how miracles, as ways God acts in the world, are possible and knowable. Throughout, the author looks at Scripture and attends to how providence deepens our understanding of God and enriches our lives.

In Breaking van Gogh, James Grundvig investigates the history and authenticity of van Gogh’s iconic Wheat Field with Cypresses, currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Relying on a vast array of techniques from the study of the painter’s biography and personal correspondence to the examination of the painting’s style and technical characteristics, Grundvig proves that “the most expensive purchase” housed in the Met is a fake. The Wheat Field with Cypresses is traditionally considered to date to the time of van Gogh’s stay in the Saint-Rémy mental asylum, where the artist produced many of his masterpieces. After his suicide, these paintings languished for a decade, until his sister-in-law took them to a family friend for restoration. The restorer had other ideas. In the course of his investigation, Grundvig traces the incredible story of this piece from the artist’s brushstrokes in sunlit southern France to a forger’s den in Paris, the art collections of a prominent Jewish banking family and a Nazi-sympathizing Swiss arms dealer, and finally the walls of the Met. The riveting narrative weaves its way through the turbulent history of twentieth-century Europe, as the painting’s fate is intimately bound with some of its major players.