Few artists are as closely associated with a single color as Vincent van Gogh is with yellow. The Van Gogh Museum’s exhibition of Yellow. Beyond Van Gogh’s Colour is the first to explore this connection in depth. It also shows how yellow has shaped the wider world of art, culture, and sensory experience.
We went behind the scenes with Edwin Becker, Head of Exhibitions at the Van Gogh Museum and co-curator of Yellow. Beyond Van Gogh’s Colour. He explained the enduring impact of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers and looked back on the unique challenge of transforming a single color into a multi-faceted, multi-sensory exhibition.
Yellow. Beyond Van Gogh’s Colour is a thematic, multi-sensory exhibition—an adventurous tour through the many meanings of the color yellow.
Van Gogh’s Sunflowers and the Many Meanings of Yellow
In 1888, Vincent van Gogh settled in the south of France, where he was captivated by the bright sunlight and saturated colors of the landscape. From Arles, he wrote an effusive letter to his brother Theo: “Sunshine, a light which, for want of a better word, I can only call yellow—pale sulfur yellow, pale lemon, gold. How beautiful yellow is!”
The color yellow became so closely tied to Van Gogh that friends decorated his coffin with yellow flowers at his funeral in 1890.
With Sunflowers, you have this feeling of a very cheerful, sunny color—this bright yellow in all its different tones. On the other hand, there is also a kind of melancholy in the flowers themselves, already fading away in the vase. And, at the same time, you realize how daring it must have been for someone to paint this in 1889.
Today, when we think of Vincent van Gogh and yellow, we inevitably think of Sunflowers. In the late 19th century, the invention of new industrial pigments allowed artists to work with brighter, more intense yellows than ever before. Van Gogh used these materials with striking effect in his Sunflowers series and other late works. These helped pioneer the Post-Impressionist shift away from using color to represent reality, toward using color as a vehicle for expression and emotion.
Yellow. Beyond Van Gogh’s Colour at the Van Gogh Museum
Naturally, Yellow. Beyond Van Gogh’s Colour centers around Sunflowers. But rather than focusing only on Vincent van Gogh and his life, the exhibition paints an incredibly wide-reaching picture of the color yellow.
Works by Van Gogh’s contemporaries are shown alongside objects ranging from perfumes to party dresses. Together, these reveal how the same color can take on different meanings over time and in different contexts. The exhibition also features immersive installations by Olafur Eliasson, where yellow is experienced through light, space, and perception.
Yellow. Beyond Van Gogh’s Colour was on view at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam from February 13 to May 17, 2026. A corresponding publication, Yellow, is available via the Van Gogh Museum shop.
