The Vincent van Gogh story is that the poverty-stricken and unappreciated artist took his own life with a shot to the chest.
But, more than a century on, two American writers have cast doubt on his suicide and instead claim he was shot dead by a teenager.
Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith claim that Van Gogh was fatally wounded by a friend's teenage brother who enjoyed teasing and provoking the mentally ill artist.
During a confrontation in the French town of Auvers-sur-Oise in 1890, the boy somehow opened fire with a gun.
They also outline another theory, that Van Gogh was shot by two local boys who were playing with a malfunctioning pistol.
Naifeh and Smith, who won a Pulitzer Prize for their biography of U.S. artist Jackson Pollock, spent ten years researching their book, which will be released in Britain tomorrow.
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