Van Gogh's Sunflowers
Philadelphia Museum of Art
June 6 - October 11, 2026
Reviewed by Ed Voves
Original Photography by Anne Lloyd and Ed Voves
Two of Vincent van Gogh's paintings are currently hanging side-by-side in Gallery 251 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Colket Gallery 251 is a relatively small display space and the two paintings by Van Gogh are the only actual works of art currently on view there. The accompanying wall text is complemented by several illustrations of other sunflower paintings by Van Gogh.
That's all you'll see in Gallery 251, making this a perfect example of what museum curators call a "focused exhibition."
The two paintings, depicting earthenware vases filled with sunflowers, rank very high among Van Gogh's masterpieces. Moreover, each of these oil paintings is a signature work for their home museum, the National Gallery, London, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA).
The two Sunflowers in Gallery 251 date from the Dutch painter's sojourn in Provence, 1888-1889. Technically speaking, these paintings are very much of the still-life genre. Nature morte is how they would be described in French. Dead nature.
Very few people crowding into the PMA's Gallery 251 would, I think, categorize either of the two Sunflower paintings as examples of "dead nature."
These remarkable works of art and five other paintings of sunflowers were executed in two bursts of creative energy. The first occurred in August 1888, with Van Gogh painting four works intended to decorate the Studio of the South in Arles. All four were painted within the span of a single week.
Later, following the disastrous break with Gauguin, Van Gogh painted three additional Sunflowers in January 1889. These were repetitions of the earlier works from the summer, done from memory!
The seven Van Gogh Sunflowers confound their status as still-life paintings. Yes, they are depictions of flowers, severed from their roots, and placed in a vase. Yet, as the two paintings on view in Gallery 251 demonstrate, they exude a life force that is palpable.
Standing in front of the Philadelphia Museum's Sunflowers can be an uncanny experience. There is a sense of "being" to the painting, difficult to locate but very much there. It is like feeling the presence of another person or creature before you see them.
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Van Gogh's Sunflowers pack incredible power in whatever configuration they appear. These astonishing works of art also show that the emotional highs and lows of Van Gogh's life did not determine the quality - and quantity - of his paintings.
The National Gallery's Sunflowers, arguably the most important of the entire series, was painted in August 1888. When Van Gogh set to work on the initial group of Sunflowers, he was in an optimistic mood and at the height of his powers. Plans for the Studio of the South were underway and he was about to paint the luminous Starry Night on the Rhone and Cafe Terrace at Night.
Van Gogh was in a very different frame of mind in January 1889, when he painted a trio of "renditions" of the summer 1888 Sunflowers. The resulting paintings restated the earlier works without being exact copies. The Philadelphia Sunflowers evokes the version in the Neue Pinakothek Munich, one of the first of Van Gogh's paintings to enter a major museum collection.
Despite the anguish of his time in the mental hospitals of Arles and St. Remy, Van Gogh continued to make plans for new paintings and arrangements of his work.
In a May 1889 letter to Theo, illustrated with a quick sketch, Van Gogh outlined his plans to use his Sunflowers to greater effect.
Van Gogh explained that he intended to use two of the paintings in tandem with a portrait of the wife of Joseph-Etienne Roulin, the postal inspector from Arles. The triptych. would evoke the reverence to motherhood accorded to the Virgin Mary, albeit arranged in a more secularized format.
With either the Munich or the PMA version to one side and the National Gallery painting on the other, Madam Roulin is placed in the middle. She is shown holding the rope used in rocking an infant's cradle, earning her the title of "berceuse." This can be translated as "lullaby" or singer of a lullaby.
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Van Gogh never had the opportunity to publicly display his triptych. That had to wait until 2024, when the National Gallery in London celebrated its bicentennial.
The British art community had been slow to appreciate the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, including Vincent van Gogh. As the 100th anniversary of the venerable museum on Trafalgar Square approached in 1924, the National Gallery's director, Charles John Holmes, determined to rectify the situation.
With the financial support of the textile magnate Samuel Courtauld, Holmes entered into negotiation with Van Gogh's sister-in-law and guardian of his oeuvre, Jo van Gogh-Bonger. The complicated incident is best described in the recent biography of van Gogh-Bonger by Hans Luijten.
When the ink dried on the contract, the National Gallery had succeeded in purchasing Sunflowers and another Van Gogh masterpiece, Van Gogh's Chair. The Van Gogh family was handsomely paid for its treasures. Happy ending!
For its 200th anniversary, the National Gallery mounted Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers. The highlight of the show was the exhibition of the Sunflowers/La Berceuse triptych. Van Gogh's dream had finally come true.
Yet, Van Gogh would likely have found grounds for comment, if not complaint. Of necessity, the curators at the National Gallery had to display the three paintings in their ornate frames, set at spacious intervals. Van Gogh conceived the arrangement much more simply, the three works grouped closely together.
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To provide closure, I created an imaginative digital display more in keeping with Van Gogh's conception, as outlined in his letter to Theo.
The National Gallery has sent its Sunflowers to help the Philadelphia Museum of Art celebrate its 150th anniversary. Jennifer Thompson, the PMA curator of the exhibition, wisely decided against attempting the triptych format again.
Thompson, recently promoted to Deputy Director of Collections and Exhibitions at the PMA, is one of today's great scholars of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art. She well knows the "back-story" of the Philadelphia Sunflowers.and the importance of allowing this masterpiece to tell its side of the story.
Unlike London, Philadelphia during the 1920's had plenty of Post-Impressionist paintings. Unfortunately, the majority of these works were in the collection of Dr. Albert Barnes. These were "off-limits" to everyone, except the students enrolled in the Barnes Foundation. We won't repeat this controversial story here, but suffice to say that lovers of Van Gogh's paintings had little to see at the PMA until Carroll S.Tyson Jr. came to rescue.
Tyson (1878-1956) was a cousin of John Singer Sargent. A business and civic leader in Philadelphia, Tyson was also a very accomplished artist. His paintings of American bird species gained him such acclaim that his carefully selected art collection was hardly noticed. Upon his death, Tyson's Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces were donated to the PMA.
With Renoir's Great Bathers, Cezanne's Millstone in the Park of the Chateau Noir and Van Gogh's Sunflowers hanging on its walls, the PMA now ranked as one of the greatest collections of French 19th century art.
With paintings of this caliber from the Tyson Collection, it seems almost a sacrilege to present them except in the direct, unpretentious manner with which the PMA's Sunflowers is currently displayed. The same is true for the National Gallery Sunflowers by its side.
Van Gogh said that he wished to create "a symphony in blue and yellow" with his Sunflowers. He certainly achieved that goal. But, in addition, he managed to capture the golden sun of Provence and added it to his palette.
Painting on Size 30 canvas sheets, Vincent van Gogh created the two astonishing works of art now hanging on the walls of Gallery 251 of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The sun light of Provence is shining from them still.
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Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved.
Original photography: Copyright of Anne Lloyd and Ed Voves, all rights reserved.
Introductory
Image: Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers. At left, is the National
Gallery, London, Sunflowers, August
1888. At right, the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Sunflowers, January 1889.
Anne Lloyd (2026) and Ed Voves (2026) Various gallery views of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Colket Gallery 251.
Anne Lloyd (2026) Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers, August 1888. Oil on canvas: 36.2 x 28.7 in. (92.1 x 73 cm) National Gallery (London).
Anne Lloyd (2026) Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers, January 1889. Oil on canvas: 36 3/8 x 28 in. (92.4 x 73.1 cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art collection.
Anne Lloyd (2026) Color illustration of Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers, August 1888. Oil on canvas, mounted on panel: 36 1/4 x 28 3/8 in. (92 x 73 cm.) Neue Pinakothek, Munich, collection.
Ed Voves, Photo (2026) Color illustration of Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers, August 1888. Oil on canvas, mounted on panel: 38 9/16 x 27 1/8 in. ( 98 x 69 cm.) Destroyed 1945 in Allied bombing of Japan. This color photo was published in 1921. Archives of Mushakoji Saneatsu Museum, Tokyo.
Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890) Excerpt of a letter to Theo van Gogh, from St. Remy, Provence, on or about May 23, 1889. Wikimedia Commons: Letter 592. (Letter is listed as #776 in Vincent van Gogh, a Life in Letters, published by Thames & Hudson, 2020.
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