In January of 1874, he wrote to Theo:

“I’m getting on very well here. I’ve got a delightful home and I’m finding it very pleasurable taking a look at London and the English way of life and the English people themselves, and then I’ve got nature and art and poetry, and if that isn’t enough, what is? But I haven’t forgotten Holland and especially not The Hague and Brabant.”

In a letter to Carolien van Stockum-Haanebeek he wrote:

“I live a rich life here, `having nothing yet possessing all.’ At times I am inclined to believe that I am gradually turning into a cosmopolite; that is, neither a Dutchman, nor an Englishman, nor yet a Frenchman, but simply a man.”

Though he didn’t paint while in London, his time there was important none-the-less.  It was in London that letter writing became a more important aspect of Van Gogh’s life.  He wrote about a number of the sites including the Royal Academy of Arts’ Summer Exhibitions, Christie’s, St. Paul’s Cathedral and Hampton Court.  In a letter from April 30, 1874, he also mentioned that he had been doing some gardening:

“I am very busy gardening now, I have sown scented peas, poppies and daisies; I have nothing more to do than to wait to see what they will give.”

Though it might have been the happiest time in his life, it was short lived, in London Van Gogh’s problems began.  For a time his sister, Anna, came and lived with him but they both had to leave the home on Hackford abruptly as he had caused a great deal of embarrassment.  Reverend Van Gogh wrote to Theo on August 15, 1874:

“They [Vincent and Anna] have moved and live no more en famille, but have rented rooms. Their address is Ivy Cottage, 395 Kennington New Road, London. At the Loyers it appeared not to be too satisfactory. I am glad; I did not trust it any too well.”

The story goes that Van Gogh fell in love with the landlady’s 19 year old daughter, Eugénie Loyer. He pursued her from the day he arrived but the feelings were not returned, she wasn’t interested in him at all.  Apparently she was secretly engaged to someone else.  This was the first in a series of unrequited attempts on Van Gogh’s behalf to have a relationship with a woman.

Letter Sources:

http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/2/013.htm

http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/2/013a.htm

http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/2/016.htm

http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/2/etc-fam-1874.htm

In a letter to his brother, Theo, on October 16, 1888, Van Gogh wrote:

“This time it’s just simply my bedroom, only here colour is to do everything, and giving by its simplification a grander style to things, is to be suggestive here of rest or of sleep in general. In a word, looking at the picture ought to rest the brain, or rather the imagination.

The walls are pale violet. The floor is of red tiles.

The wood of the bed and chairs is the yellow of fresh butter, the sheets and pillows very light greenish-citron.

The coverlet scarlet. The window green.

The toilet table orange, the basin blue.

The doors lilac.

And that is all – there is nothing in this room with its closed shutters.

The squareness of the furniture again must express inviolable rest. Portraits on the walls, and a mirror and a towel and some clothes.

The frame – as there is no white in the picture – will be white.

This by way of revenge for the enforced rest I was obliged to take.

I shall work on it again all day, but you see how simple the conception is. The shadows and the cast shadows are suppressed; it is painted in free flat tints like the Japanese prints. It is going to be a contrast to, for instance, the Tarascon diligence and the night café.”

In another letter on October 17, 1888, again mentioning the bedroom, he wrote,

“This bedroom is something like the still life of the “Romans Parisiens” with the yellow, pink and green covers, you remember it. But I think the workmanship is more virile and simple. No stippling, no hatching, nothing, only flat colours in harmony.”

Also on October 17, 1888, Van Gogh wrote to Gauguin about the painting,

“I have done, still for my decoration, a size 30 canvas of my bedroom with the white deal furniture that you know. Well, I enormously enjoyed doing this interior of nothing at all. Of a simplicity à la Seurat.

With flat tints, but brushed on roughly, with a thick impasto, the walls pale lilac, the ground a faded broken red, the chairs and the bed chrome yellow, the pillows and the sheet a very pale green-citron, the blanket blood red, the washstand orange, the washbasin blue, the window green. By means of all these very diverse tones I have wanted to express an absolute restfulness, you see, and there is no white in it at all except a little note produced by the mirror with its black frame (in order to get the fourth pair of complementaries into it).”

Clearly Van Gogh was pleased with his work.  He created five different versions of his bedroom, 3 in oil and 2 in letter sketches.  The 3 paintings vary only slightly in minor details.  It is believed that the version of the painting that is on display at the DIA is a copy of the original which Van Gogh produced while in the asylum in Saint-Remy.

Letter Source:
http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/18/554.htm
http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/18/555.htm
http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/18/B22.htm

There are no known drawings or sketches of Irises, probably because Van Gogh considered this to be a study.  He shipped the painting to his brother, Theo, who saw the painting differently, submitting it to the exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants in September 1889.  Theo wrote to Vincent about Irises on September 5, 1889,

“…it strikes the eye from afar. It is a beautiful study full of air and life.”

Irises was sold by Sotheby’s in 1987 for $53.9 million, the highest price, up to that point, ever paid for an artwork at auction.  In 1990, the painting was sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles where it is now on view.

Letter Source:
http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/20/T16.htm