Sunflowers as gratitude - also for former queen

That flowers are full of emotion and symbolism became clear during the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam last June 2. Which I was attending on behalf of Takii - the museum's sunflower partner. During the anniversary celebration on the Museum Square, Princess Beatrix received a sunflower, just like her mother Queen Juliana did fifty years ago at the opening of the museum. It symbolized gratitude for the royal involvement in the museum.?

The Museum Square was transformed into a sea of yellow flowers. Tens of thousands of sunflowers were handed out to passersby. There was a Sunflower Art Festival, with street theater, workshops, music and a drone performance. Free to attend and in gratitude to the public, who have appreciated the museum and Van Gogh for so many years.

In 50 years, the Van Gogh Museum has welcomed more than 50 million visitors and has millions of engaged followers through social media. The museum inspires with the life and work of Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh himself was especially inspired by nature, with the sunflowers he loved so much. The work Sunflowers (1889) and the series he made of them symbolized gratitude, according to Vincent. He made these works for his friend Paul Gauguin, who lived with him at the Yellow House in Arles. The artist Gauguin was greatly impressed by his still lifes of sunflowers.

Wonderful was Princess Beatrix' reaction to the received sunflower: "How beautiful! Are they real?"?Particularly well noted, as it was still too early for Dutch sunflowers - the first ones come on the market at the end of June. The 35,000 Sunrich sunflowers were sponsored by Takii. They were grown in Spain, by Erik Overtoom. Which luckily were not affected by the unexpected heavy rains and flooding in the South of Spain. Zuidkoop was responsible for dressing the fantastic festival decor.

Thank you Van Gogh Museum, for this great day! In particular Stijn Wopereis,?Urita Mual,?Marissa Otten,?Sadaf Hosseni,?Eline van Beek,?Yvonne Nasser & team.

To end with a quote: "symbolizing gratitude in the rustic sunflower" Vincent van Gogh to his sister Willemien, 19 February 1890

?#Sunflower #vangoghmuseum #takii