Van Gogh’s Flowers (May 24 through October 26, 2025)

Vincent van Gogh needs no introduction to art lovers. Happily, for them and even for those not acquainted with the iconic painter, the New York Botanical Garden’s spring exhibit Van Gogh’s Flowers is stunning. The memorable exhibit celebrates the work of the Dutch painter who decided to become an artist at 27-years-old.

His was a decision that changed his life and the art world forever, according to the Vincent Van Gogh Museum in its discussion of Van Gogh’s life and journey toward the elusive greatness he never was able to realize while he was alive. Van Gogh’s Flowers runs from May 24 through October 26, 2025. The exhibit is not to be missed, principally because it highlights the way Van Gogh captured still lifes of flowers through his unique expression of color, light and form.

Reading through the stories of Van Gogh listed with various paintings on the Van Gogh Museum’s website, one is able to discover interesting facts about the junction of Van Gogh’s life and work. On the subject of flowers, the museum contains some of his floral still lifes. It’s fun to compare them with the specific paintings that inspired artists Amie J. Jacobsen, Graphic Rewilding’s Catherine Borowski and Lee Baker, and immersive artist, Cyril Lancelin.

All three contemporary artists contribute to the NYBG exhibit Van Gogh’s Flowers using their own mediums of expression.

Visiting NYBG Van Gogh’s Flowers, one will want to read all of the signage with the quotes Van Gogh spoke during his lifetime to learn more about the mythic painter. The signage also pinpoints the designs of the featured artists found in the Enid A Haupt Conservatory walkways, in the indoor and outdoor reflecting pools and in the great plaza lawn. Van Gogh’s influence on them and on artists globally is a study in genius and the immutable verities that touch humanity and ground it in the pleasure of beauty and nature to move our souls out of ourselves into another way of being and consciousness.

Apparently, along his journey, Van Gogh painted flowers as a commercial venture, as he heard that such paintings were popular and lucrative. In Paris Van Gogh painted over 35 still life paintings of flowers, hoping that they would sell.

However, he had little luck selling them even though paintings of flowers were trending. His brother Theo wrote to their mother telling her that to help him, acquaintances would bring flowers for Van Gogh to paint every week.

After he ventured to the South of France, Van Gogh, whose intellect and mentality were always fragile, had a breakdown. It took him about a year to recover in a sanatorium at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence where he painted scenes he saw from his room. Interestingly, he didn’t paint the bars on the windows, perhaps signifying that in his creative spirit he was free as he was in his paintings as his mode of expression. Before and after recovering from his extended illness Van Gogh painted sunflowers (in Arles nearby), which to him symbolized gratitude. He used the color yellow extensively delighting in it. These and other details are found on the signage of the NYBG exhibit.

The NYBG exhibit features a placard of Van Gogh’s painting of the courtyard of the hospital at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence where Van Gogh found rest and recuperated as best he could. The showcase rotunda of the Enid A. Haupt conservatory features a reflection of Van Gogh’s courtyard painting with a similar structure suggested and the amazing plantings which are in a circular arrangement segmented florally like the spokes of a wheel. Just breathtaking.

At the Garden, the paintings that inspired the artists Amie J. Jacobsen, Catherine Borowski and Lee Baker, and Cyril Lancelin are brought to life situated in gorgeous botanical displays along with the contemporary artists’ work.

Thanks to Cyril Lancelin, visitors can walk along a pathway that meanders through plantings of real and sculptured sunflowers (by Lancelin), a symbolic reflection of what Van Gogh found healing and restorative. For him sunflowers meant “gratitude.”

Vincent left the mental hospital in May 1890, he headed north to Auvers-sur-Oise. He met several artists there and continued painting fields, always using his beloved yellow. Then, one day in agitation, the story goes, he shot himself in a wheat field and died of his wounds some days later.

Van Gogh’s incredible legacy was a large body of art works: over 850 paintings and almost 1,300 works on paper. Visitors to NYBG’s Van Gogh’s Flowers will come to a new appreciation of how the natural world inspired Van Gogh. Most museums boast at least two or three of Van Gogh’s paintings which at auction command millions of dollars. In 1987 one version of Sunflowers sold for $37. 85 million. Today, those in the art world suggest the sunflower series of paintings would be in the hundreds of millions.

This amazing NYBG exhibit is a complete celebration of Van Gogh reflected in all of its programming. Complementary daytime programming on select dates during Van Gogh’s Flowers will offer engaging, interactive experiences, such as “Plein Air Drop-In and Paint,” engaging NYBG visitors’ creativity.

On select dates, Starry Nights will offer exhibition viewing in the glow of evening, with music and performers, drinks and food available for purchase. Conditions-permitting, after-dark Van Gogh-themed drone shows will take place on May 30, 31st and June 6th. These shows are New York City’s first at a cultural institution—bringing Starry Night to life before your eyes.

Finally, visitors can immerse themselves in the LEGO Botanical Garden pop-up. They can enjoy the hands-on make-and-take experience including a mini-Van Gogh sunflower creation.

For more information about this wonderful show and programming during the exhibit, go to the website, https://www.nybg.org/event/van-goghs-flowers/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22428050313