By Lia Iacona

PHILADELPHIA—For a limited time, the Philadelphia Museum of Art is featuring two Van Gogh sunflower paintings. One was flown in from London, while the museum pulled the other from its own collection. “A Symphony in Blue and Yellow” is a tribute to the two paintings featured in the exhibit.

London’s National Gallery sent over its famous yellow-background sunflower painting as part of a reciprocal cultural exchange arranged back in 2024. The Philadelphia Museum of Art lent the National Gallery in London its own turquoise-background sunflower for the “Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers” exhibit.

Van Gogh’s original intention was to create dozens of paintings that conveyed a symphony in blue and yellow with the sunflowers together, along with their vibrant colors. Though he was never able to create his favorite flower on that many canvases, the museum offers these two paintings to show color, brushstrokes, and expressive effect.

One week in August of 1888, Van Gogh picked and painted the luminous flower, creating four paintings within that period. Later that winter, while recovering from a mental health crisis, Van Gogh relied on memory and earlier studies to paint repetitions of the sunflower works. As you view these two paintings together, you can see the textural brushstrokes and vibrant colors—though sharing the same subject, nothing is identical between the canvases. “Instead of trying to render exactly what I have before my eyes, I use colour more arbitrarily in order to express myself forcefully,” Van Gogh wrote in a letter to his brother.

This limited-time exhibit is currently running at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sunday, Oct. 11. Admission for college students is discounted to $14 with a valid student ID, which includes access to all permanent and special exhibitions across the museum.

Tickets can be reserved online through the Philadelphia Museum of Art website. Visitors traveling by car can use the museum’s parking garage, while transit riders can reach the museum via SEPTA Regional Rail to 30th Street Station.