Van Gogh Painting At Sotheby's May Make $50 Million

Have an extra $50 million burning a hole in your pocket?  That's how much you'll need to get one of the Venus' arms of paintings, a Van Gogh looking for a buyer.  Prestigious auction house Sotheby's is estimates that Still Life, Vase with Daisies and Poppies (1890) (also called Still Life: Red Poppies and Daisies) will go under the hammer anywhere from $30 million to $50 million (US).

The painting  officially goes on sale November 4 at Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale.  It is, unpredictably, predicted to be the sale highlight.  Museums, private owners of Van Gogh's works and the companies that insure them will be more than eager to see what the final price is as this will help them re-evaluate how much their Van Gogh's are now worth.

What's so special about this painting?  It's red flowers in a vase, right?  The background is similar to those of the infamous Sunflowers series.  This also may be one of the last paintings that Van Gogh did, according to the New York Observer.  It was painted at Auvers-sur-Oise, France, possibly in June of 1890.

Let's hope that Still Life, Vase with Daisies and Poppies does not share the same fate as Portrait of Dr. Gachet which disappeared after being bought at a Christie's auction for a Japanese collector 1990. That painting's price was over $82 million. Very few Van Gogh paintings have ever been on the open market in America since the 1980's, notes The Financial Times.

Image is from the Van Gogh Gallery's excellent website.

EDIT November 5: The painting went for $61.8 million.

My Favorite Van Gogh Painting: Sunflowers

I've just realized that I've had this blog for over a year and have yet to write extensively about my favorite painting by Vincent Van Gogh. I will now rectify this immediately.

As this post's title suggests, my favorite Van Gogh painting is Sunflowers (Tournesols).  Ah, but which Sunflowers, you ask? Van Gogh did numerous paintings featuring these gaudy flowers in different shades, vases and sometimes with other flowers.  The one I like is the most famous version with a yellow-gold background, painted in 1888 and now hangs in the National Gallery  in London.

Why? Well, my Mom bought a cheap framed reproduction when I was a very small child.  It hung on the stairway next to the stacks of National Geographics that my family once collected (and are now long gone.) About 40 years later, after my parents' divorce, my two busted live-in relationships and God knows how many moves, it's about all that's left of my childhood.  It's still owned by my Mom.

When I was 29, I had a mental breakdown and ran away to live with a busker in England.  That didn't work out and I burned a lot of bridges back to America.  And then one day my make-shift shelter in the woods was burnt down.  The fire brigade suspected arson.  I knew someone was trying to kill me and my dog.  I never thought my Mom would take me in, but she did -- and took my dog in, too.

She set up a bedroom for me in the basement.  There, propped against a mirror, was the Sunflowers painting.  I had come home.

Below is a short news clip about two of the most famous versions from London and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam of Sunflowers being shown side by side.

What is your favorite Van Gogh painting?

Painting Focus: Vase with Gladioli and China Asters, 1886

Today, a painting by Vincent Van Gogh is worth millions of dollars. But when Van Gogh lived, he could barely afford to eat and rarely could afford to hire models. Although he wrote often to his brother Theo about his wish to paint people, he rarely was able to. So Van Gogh was forced to improvise by painting whatever objects were available, including a simple vase filled with gladioli flowers.

Van Gogh painted many varieties of flowers. His best known flower works are his bright series of sunflower paintings. Van Gogh's "Vase with Gladiloi" (1886) is an often overlooked masterpiece in interpreting still life to canvas. Van Gogh did several pieces including gladioli flowers in the summer of 1886, but this is arguably the best in the series. It now hangs in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The painting is also called "Vase with Gladioli and Chinese Asters", F248a and several others that I'm sure I forgot to mention here.

Van Gogh's Style

Van Gogh is an artist that's either loved or hated. Van Gogh did receive some art instruction, but mostly was a self-taught artist. Critics point out his blocky, borderline cartoonish figures, including those of flowers. Van Gogh used a swirling quality with his colors, laying them sometimes directly next to each other instead of blending them in. "Vase with Gladioli" shows how thickly he laid the expensive oil paints onto his canvass.
Because Van Gogh used paint in such thick layers, we are able to see how long his brushstrokes were and sometimes the actual tiny lines of the brush itself. This is especially noticeable in the vase itself and sprig of gladioli laying nest to the vase. When viewed at a slight distance of a few feet, the colors and brushstrokes do blend to make a solid picture. But seeing the actual brushstrokes gives a personal touch, as if Van Gogh is not afraid for us to see how he works. This makes his work approachable because of this human touch.

Van Gogh's Palette

Most of Van Gogh's flower paintings are done with one predominating color or colors that closely resemble each other. His sunflower series are in mostly bright earth tones, for example. "Vase with Gladioli" is different in that there are a variety of colors used. The background and most of the vase is dark, while the flowers themselves are bright green, yellow, red and white. The red is quite dark, which helps to balance the dark and light colors.

The vase itself is quite interesting, although it is dominated by the gladioli. It may have been an old tin can that perhaps at one time held Van Gogh's brushes. It is smeared with odd splotches of colors, suggesting that Van Gogh may have used it as a substitute palette at one point.

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."

Painting Focus: Irises (1889)

"How well he understood the exquisite nature of flowers!” – Octave Mirbeau, first owner of “Irises”

It’s one of the most recognizable – and expensive – paintings in the world. It was one of the very few works that received critical praise during Vincent Van Gogh’s brief but tortured life. It’s known simply as “Irises.” It was painted in 1889 while Van Gogh was recuperating at an asylum at Saint-Remy in Southern France.  The flowers grew in the asylum's garden.

Such an iconic image seems almost commonplace today, but back in 1889 it was a whole new way of looking at the world. What were Van Gogh's inspirations? There were many, which he somehow distilled the essence of each and brought it to this particular canvass. Here is a look at some of them.

Japanese Woodcuts

Japanese art and fashion became faddishly popular in mid-1800s France and Belgium. It was still popular during Van Gogh's ten-year career as an artist. He also collected Japanese woodcut prints and even tried his hand at copying a few. Prints made from Japanese woodcuts have clear, bright colors and flowing, curving forms making people, animals, buildings, boats and nature as essentially the same stuff.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Although many art history books claim Japanese woodcuts were Van Gogh's major inspiration, there also seems to have been some influence by Van Gogh's contemporary, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864 - 1901.) He was also influenced by Japanese art. Among his best-known works were vibrant posters that used a limited palette of bright colors and curving, sensuous lines. Both artists briefly knew each other when both lived in Paris in 1886. Van Gogh was very familiar with Toulouse-Lautrec's work.

The Irises Themselves

The point of view of "Irises" is much different than flower studies done in the past - even flower studies done by Vincent. Usually they were of a garden or selected flowers arranged in a vase. But this time the viewpoint is right down at the level of the irises. Each flower and leaf bends and if carrying a heavy burden and yet springs up resiliently. By this time, Van Gogh had abandoned religion and used nature and art to fill the gap. The power of nature is certainly apparent in the lush green leaves.

His Inner Life

There's nothing in the painting to indicate that these flowers are growing in an asylum. That may have been intentional. Van Gogh, who once so desperately wanted to be a portrait painter, found out that he was gifted at painting common objects like flowers. He personalized the flowers. He may have thought of himself and the other asylum inmates as the irises, growing out of the dirt.