Biography

Irving Stone (born Tennenbaum, July 14, 1903 – August 26, 1989) was an American writer, chiefly known for his biographical novels of noted artists, politicians, and intellectuals. Among the best known are Lust for Life (1934), about the life of Vincent van Gogh, and The Agony and the Ecstasy (1961), about Michelangelo. Born Irving Tennenbaum in San Francisco, he was seven when his parents divorced. By the time he was a senior in high school, his mother had remarried. He legally changed his last name to "Stone", his stepfather's surname. Stone said his mother instilled a passion for reading in him. From then on, he believed that education was the only way to succeed in life.

In 1923, Stone received his bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley. After receiving his M.A. there, he worked as a teaching assistant in English. He met his first wife, Lona Mosk (1905–1965), who was a student at the university. On money provided by her father, Los Angeles businessman Ernest Mosk, the young couple went to Paris.

Irving and Lona Stone returned to the United States in the 1930s from Europe, where he had been researching Van Gogh for six months. In 1930 he received a letter from Dr. Felix Rey, who had treated Van Gogh after the artist cut off his own ear in December 1888. Rey, who was the subject of a portrait painting by Van Gogh, became Stone's friend; he confirmed that Van Gogh's whole ear was removed and not only the earlobe. As reported in the NY Times obituary of Stone on August 28, 1989, the Stones resided in New York's Greenwich Village where Irving finished Lust for Life, the biographical novel about Van Gogh that set his career in motion. According to the Times, Lust for Life (the title suggested by his first wife) was rejected by seventeen publishers over three years before being published in 1934.

Stone began a relationship with his secretary, Jean Factor, and after he and Lona were divorced, he and Jean married. This later marriage lasted until Stone's death in Los Angeles in 1989. Jean Stone died in 2004, aged 93.

During their years together, Jean Stone edited many of his books. The Stones lived primarily in Los Angeles. They funded a foundation to support a number of charitable causes.

When at home, Stone relied upon the research facilities and expertise made available to him by Esther Euler, chief research librarian at the University of California at Los Angeles. He dedicated books to her and thanked her in several of his works.

According to his afterword in Lust for Life, Stone relied on Van Gogh's letters to his brother, art dealer Theo. Stone additionally did much of his research "in the field." For example, he spent many years living in Italy while working on The Agony and the Ecstasy, a novel about Michelangelo Buonarroti. In his introduction to The Origin, Stone documents that he and his wife lived for a while at Down House (Darwin's home for the final forty years of his life) during the research and writing of that book. The Italian government lauded Stone with several honorary awards during this period for his cultural achievements highlighting Italian history.