Giant Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’

Van Gogh completed “Sunflowers,” two series of still-life paintings, in the late 1800s while living in the south of France. In 1998, local teacher and artist Cameron Cross recreated a larger-than-life version based on Van Gogh’s series to commemorate Altona’s status as the sunflower capital of Canada. The easel is 75 feet high and weighs over five tons. The painting itself is 23 feet wide and 33 feet tall, and weighing in at nearly four tons.

In 2017, Cross temporarily took down the painting for restoration after 20 years of water damage. The piece has since been restored to its former glory.

Cross’s original vision was to create and install a series of seven giant paintings representing Van Gogh’s seven sunflower paintings, across seven different countries around the world. The one in Altona was the first, while a second easel was erected in Emerald, Australia in 1999. A third easel went up in Goodland, Kansas in 2001. He has yet to fulfill his original plans of erecting easels in South Africa, Argentina, Japan, and France.