A Lego Van Gogh Sunflowers? It’s like painting with bricks – 2,615 of them, to be exact

Using standard Lego brick shapes and colours, designer recreates painting in 2,615 bricks. It’s on show beside the real thing in Amsterdam

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A Lego recreation of one of Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers paintings on display next to the actual painting in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Lego fans can buy a 2,615-piece brick set to take home and make their own Sunflowers. Photo: Reuters

Published: 4:15pm, 5 Mar 2025

Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum has joined forces with the Danish toy brickmaker Lego to create a build-your-own version of Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers.

Standing in front of Van Gogh’s 1889 masterpiece, one of the series of sunflower paintings for which the painter is best known, museum curator Nienke Bakker said she hoped the Lego version would help more people to become familiar with his life and work.

“The great thing is that people can actually build it themselves and build up a composition in a way that a painter builds up a composition,” she said.

Comprising 2,615 pieces and complete with adjustable petals, the Lego Sunflowers is smaller than the painting that inspires it, but still takes many hours to build. It is made up of existing brick shapes and colours with the exception of a specially created brick with Van Gogh’s signature.

Visitors look at a Lego version of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Photo: Reuters

Stijn Oom, a designer at the privately held Danish company, said it had been a challenge to choose the right colours, but that Van Gogh’s distinctive painting style, with visible, bold brush strokes, had lent itself to the Lego three-dimensional model.