Van Gogh Sunflowers Facebook Live

Hello, I'm Gabriele Finaldi, the director of the National Gallery. Welcome to Trafalgar Square. About six million people come to our museum every year and most of those will stop in front of this picture, Van Gogh's Sunflower. It is one of our most celebrated and best-loved pictures. Van Gogh painted it in the summer of 1888. He was in Arles in the south of France and it's part of a series of paintings which he made to celebrate his difficult friendship with Gauguin, a picture that for him reflected joy and happiness. Five of those pictures spread across three continents. They've never been brought together, but in a special Facebook Live event on the 14th of August, we're bringing those pictures together in a single virtual space. The curators in each of the museums that house these pictures will talk about them and we'll be celebrating together the achievement of Van Gogh. So join us on the 14th of August, the National Gallery, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Neue Pinakothek in Munich, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Sompo Museum in Japan. We'll be celebrating Van Gogh's achievement and in particular his series of the Sunflowers.