A Pair of Van Gogh's Sunfllowers Shown Together in London

Going to be in London?  You lucky dogs.  You'll get an opportunity to see a sight which was last viewed 65 years ago -- when two versions of Vincent Van Gogh's infamous sunflower paintings were hung side by side.  The display will last for three months only until April.  Remember -- admission to The National Gallery is free.  Compare that to the cost of seeing a Van Gogh in an American museum, where charges rom $25 to $35 per person are not uncommon.

One version is owned by the National Gallery in London.  It was bought in 1924 from the Van Gogh family for a whopping 24 million pounds sterling.  The other is owed by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.  They are now displayed in Room 46 of the National Gallery.

There are several versions of Van Gogh's sunflower paintings.  My personal favorite is the one I have actually travelled to see at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  Sadly, one version was destroyed during World War II, although photos of it apparently still exist.  Because of their value, the chances of all existing versions being brought together in one museum are next to impossible.  The sunflowers in Philly, for example, is one of the cash cows for that museum and so it could never part with it.

Vincent once wrote that his sunflowers were really self-portraits.  Perhaps he was in a more positive frame of mind when he wrote that.  In his career, Vincent painted sunflowers in all their stages from seeds to dried dead flowers.  When Paul Gauguin painted his portrait of Vincent, he chose one of Vincent painting sunflowers.  Vincent reportedly said of it, "It is a portrait of me, but a portrait of me gone mad."