Van Gogh 100 years Ceci n'est pas une la pipe de Vincent 1989

In 1989, on the centennial of Vincent van Gogh's death, iconic American graphic designer Milton Glaser created this bold and intellectually playful poster titled "Ceci n'est pas une la pipe de Vincent" — a witty nod to both van Gogh’s tortured genius and René Magritte’s surrealist provocation "Ceci n’est pas une pipe."

The poster merges visual pun with homage. A stylized, vividly painted pipe sits prominently in the composition — a direct reference to van Gogh’s still life “Pipe and Glass” works and personal iconography. Yet, Glaser overlays it with Magritte’s famous phrase, slightly altered with a deliberate French grammatical twist. The misrendering (“une la pipe”) adds a surreal tone that blurs languages, times, and identities — perfectly in tune with Glaser's postmodern design sensibility.

Glaser's composition evokes the swirling texture and chromatic intensity of van Gogh’s brushwork while maintaining his own signature blend of conceptual clarity and visual irony. The background is left open and minimal, allowing the “pipe” — not a pipe — to float like a philosophical question.

This poster was part of an international wave of tributes to van Gogh in 1989, commemorating a century since his tragic death in 1890. Glaser’s entry stood out for its cerebral humor and layered references, showing reverence without sentimentality.

Today, it is seen not only as a collector's gem of late-20th-century graphic design but also as a conversation between art history, identity, and the illusion of meaning — an image that, like van Gogh himself, refuses to be contained.

Exhibition - Holland

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