Sunflowers
Vincent van Gogh (1853 to 1890) · 1888
Not currently on display. On loan to the Philadelphia Museum of Art until 11 October 2026 according to the gallery's website; check it has returned before visiting.
Fifteen sunflowers crowd a simple earthenware vase against a wall of pale yellow. Some are fresh and open, some have lost their petals and turned to seed heads, and one or two droop over the rim. Van Gogh painted it in Arles in August 1888 while waiting for Paul Gauguin to arrive, planning a series of sunflower canvases to decorate his friend's bedroom in the Yellow House. It is the picture most people think of when they think of Van Gogh, and it has hung in London since 1924.
The paint is thick and physical. Van Gogh loaded his brush and pressed the strokes into the canvas so that each petal and seed head stands up in relief; step to one side and you can see the ridges catching the light. He used the new chrome yellows that had recently become available, working yellow on yellow, with only a thin line of blue at the table edge and touches of green to hold it together. He signed it Vincent on the vase, as he always did, because foreigners in France struggled with his surname.
The canvas stayed with the artist's family until his sister in law Johanna sold it to the National Gallery, though she wrote that she was sad to lose something that had meant so much to her husband Theo. Van Gogh painted a second version in January 1889, now in Amsterdam, and the two were reunited in London in 2014. He described sunflowers as his own flower, and a friend laid them on his coffin in 1890.
Did You Know? Van Gogh wrote to his brother that he was painting with the enthusiasm of a Marseillais eating bouillabaisse, hurrying because the flowers faded so fast.
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