Sunflowers Epic Poster

Simple, bold and beautiful. Epic Posters are dramatic while still retaining the character of the original image.

Printed on revolutionary Tyvek® paper (a patented complex weave technique that's almost impossible to tear), these posters are very resilient and have a satin finish. Each poster measures 6 x 4 feet (1.8 x 1.2 metres) and is delivered rolled in a tube with handy cardboard struts and robust bulldog clips for easy hanging.

About this painting

Vincent van Gogh Sunflowers, 1888

Oil on canvas, 92.1 x 73 cm

© The National Gallery, London, Bought, Courtauld Fund, 1924

The original painting hung in the gallery is one of four paintings of sunflowers dating from August and September 1888. Van Gogh intended to decorate Gauguin's room with these paintings in the so-called Yellow House that he rented in Arles in the South of France. He and Gauguin worked there together between October and December 1888.

Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo in August 1888, 'I am hard at it, painting with the enthusiasm of a Marseillais eating bouillabaisse, which won't surprise you when you know that what I'm at is the painting of some sunflowers. If I carry out this idea there will be a dozen panels. So the whole thing will be a symphony in blue and yellow. I am working at it every morning from sunrise on, for the flowers fade so quickly. I am now on the fourth picture of sunflowers. This fourth one is a bunch of 14 flowers... it gives a singular effect.'

The dying flowers are built up with thick brushstrokes (impasto). The impasto evokes the texture of the seed-heads. Van Gogh produced a replica of this painting in January 1889, and perhaps another one later in the year. The various versions and replicas remain much debated among Van Gogh scholars.