Vincent van Gogh’s Paintings Come to Life at New Show
- Editor OGN Daily
- Jun 5
- 2 min read
A new exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden celebrates the Dutch painter’s love of nature.
Between May 1889 and May 1890, Vincent van Gogh was a self-admitted patient at a psychiatric hospital in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, a small town in the south of France. During his stay, van Gogh painted what was most accessible to him, such as a wheat field he could see from the window. He also painted flowers - lots of them.
Soon after he entered the hospital, van Gogh painted Irises, a tightly packed frame of blue flowers dappled with spots of yellow and orange. Just before he left, he painted Roses, a composition featuring a bouquet of pink roses in a green vase. They appear once again in sculptures at Van Gogh’s Flowers, an exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG). The show features the living flowers that inspired van Gogh, as well as monumental reinterpretations by contemporary artists. These works, alongside 18,000 plants grown for the exhibition, join the more than one million plants typically on display at the botanical garden, says Smithsonian Magazine.
“The artist’s relationship to nature is legendary, so it’s our perfect dream show,” Michaela Wright, NYBG’s director of exhibition content and interpretation, told ABC7. “He loved the color contrast that they brought, violet purple with a splash of yellow at the center, and every spring he turned his brush to the irises.”
“This exhibition brings the paintings you know so well to life with the plants that inspired the artist,” NYBG CEO Jennifer Bernstein tells Time Out. “You’ve seen the paintings - now see them come to life in the garden.”
Van Gogh’s Flowers is on view at the New York Botanical Garden until 26 October 2025.
