Starry Nights and Van Gogh Flowers at NY Botanical Garden

Anyone who knows to link a sunflower with Vincent Van Gogh will be very happy: Through Oct. 26, visitors to the New York Botanical Garden get to witness their newest exhibit, Van Gogh’s Flowers.

“Plant education is always at the heart of our exhibitions, and our Van Gogh exhibition beautifully continues that tradition,” says Kenia Pittman, NYBG’s director of exhibition design and operations. “What makes our approach unique is the way we blend art and nature, using our Garden as a living canvas to create an immersive and inspiring experience for every visitor.”

Since this is one of the best botanical gardens in the world, Van Gogh’s Flowers will be a sunflower explosion. The varieties and sizes of sunflowers are eye-popping, with 32 varieties ranging from a 4-foot-tall flower to a gigantic 12-foot-tall stunner that is wilder. This team knows how to put on a show.

Overall, there will be 18,000 plants on display with over 300 species and cultivars.

But it’s not only sunflowers that appear in this interactive exhibit.

Since the Dutch painter, who died in 1890, also loved irises, roses, and other blooms, the New York Botanical Garden found inventive ways to interpret his paintings with other flowers.

A huge sculpture inspired by his irises stands tall in one section bookended with an array of flowers.

Mixing contemporary art and botanical displays has been a popular pairing here, most recently with NYBG’s recent spring orchid show, which focused on Mexican modernism through the work of Mexican modernist architect Luis Barragán (1902–1988).

Pittman says that the idea for Van Gogh’s Flowers was sparked by the artist’s profound connection to nature—especially flowers—which were central to many of his most iconic works.

To bring the concept to life, NYBG worked with a team of contemporary artists—immersive artist Cyril Lancelin, Lee Baker and Catherine Borowski of Graphic Rewilding, and sculptor Amie Jacobsen—to transform the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory precinct into a living tribute to Van Gogh’s masterpieces and the plants that inspired him, she adds.

Among the must-sees is a field of real and sculptural sunflowers: Visitors can wander through the sea of yellow blooms.

Complementary daytime programming on select dates during Van Gogh’s Flowers will offer interactive experiences, such as “Plein Air Drop-In and Paint,” designed to “spark” NYBG visitors’ imaginations and give parents a fun activity with kids.

On select Fridays and Saturdays, through Sept. 13, from 7 to 10pm, a light show inspired by Van Gogh’s “Starry Nights” offers exhibition-viewing in the glow of evening. Truly a great date night or friend gathering opportunity. All this, with music and performers, drinks and food available for purchase, and, conditions permitting, after-dark Van Gogh-themed drone shows—New York City’s first at a cultural institution—will make for a great time.

As far as upcoming activities, on Saturday, July 26, 2025, from noon to 3pm, visitors can win prizes for dressing up like Vincent Van Gogh. (I have a sunflower shirt I plan to wear.) It’s called “Van Gogh Dress-Up Day,” and the first 100 visitors to arrive dressed in costume—as the artist himself, one of his famed paintings, or any imaginative look inspired by the flowery subjects he painted—will receive gifts. Those dressed in costume also receive vouchers for a refreshing summer mocktail and 20 percent off a purchase at NYBG Shop.

Conservatory Plaza will be command central for the “LookAlike Contest,” and those dressed like Vincent can walk the runway for the crowd and have judges admire their style, with a chance to win NYBG and Van Gogh’s Flowers prizes.

The organizers even planned for heat with some indoor theater activities. There will be “Van Gogh in Film Showings” at 11am and 1pm, including Loving Vincent, an animated film about the painter’s life, which was a 2018 Academy Award nominee for Best Animated Feature Film and tells the story of Van Gogh’s later years through his paintings. The film is rated PG-13 with a run time of 90 minutes.

Van Gogh opened on May 24 and already, says Pittman, “social media is blooming with photos of guests posing among the towering sunflowers, marveling at the monumental contemporary art installations, and enjoying themselves with a drink in hand at one of our select Starry Nights before catching the dazzling 10-minute drone show finale.”

Van Gogh is culturally so popular. A few years ago, there was a Paris Atelier des Lumières’s show interpreting his work. Now it is the horticultural teams at the New York Botanical Garden creating this show.

A truly great experience for all generations and an opportunity for conversations as well. Plus the sunflower is about to bloom for all of us this summer.

Vincent Van Gogh, after all, looked at the sunflower as a special source of inspiration. “I find comfort in contemplating the sunflowers,” the Dutch painter said. As time moved on during his lifetime in the late 1800s, he realized his special connection to the flower. As he said, “The sunflower in mine, in a way.”

Going to this exhibit allows the experience of sunflowers to be yours too while getting to observe nature as he once did in the fields of Provence.