Cut Sunflowers, 1887
Vincent van Gogh
Oil on canvas · 17 x 24 in. (43.2 x 61 cm)
Two cut sunflower heads laid on vivid blue, painted in Paris.
Two cut sunflower heads lie against vivid blue, painted in Paris in 1887 before the famous Arles vases. Van Gogh was studying the flower up close here, its seedhead and curling petals, using complementary blue to make the yellows burn.
What you're looking at
They are lying down. These are two cut heads on a surface, not a bouquet in a vase — van Gogh painted this in Paris a year before the Arles pictures everyone knows, while he was working out what the flower actually looked like up close. The seedhead is built from separate loaded touches and the petals curl and dry rather than blaze.
On a Frame TV
About 1.42:1. The clean crop trims top and bottom and keeps both heads. Yellow against a strong blue, so contrast is high and it survives a bright room comfortably.
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These are not the famous Sunflowers, and Gauguin slept beneath two of them →
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Other works in the collection, starting with Vincent van Gogh.
