Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Flowers [Feldman & Schellmann 11.6]

1964
signed and dated in ballpoint pen
from the unnumbered edition of approximately 300
offset lithograph in colours on wove
printed by Total Colour, published by Leo Castelli Gallery, New York
framed

Dimensions: sheet 58.4 x 58.4cm

Korvettes, New York
Acquired from the previous, Private Collection
Thence by descent
Lama, California, Prints and Multiples, 26th April 2023, Lot 105
Maddox Gallery, London, where acquired by the present owner in May 2023

Reference:
see Museum of Modern Art, New York, accession number 583.1994 and Victoria & Albert Museum, London, accession number CIRC.648-1967 for other examples of this edition

Literature:
Feldman & Schellmann 11.6

This edition was released to coincide with a Warhol exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, November 21- December 17 1964

Andy Warhol’s Flowers are icons of the Pop Art movement and are among his most recognisable subjects. The original image was sourced from a 1964 issue of Modern Photography magazine. Warhol appropriated this commercial photograph and reworked it through printing in numerous colour combinations and iterations, exploring the mechanical reproduction of images within mass media culture.

While flower painting has a long art-historical tradition associated with beauty, symbolism, and transience, Warhol deliberately subverts this lineage. By employing industrial printing techniques and emphasising repetition and flatness, he removes the expressive hand of the artist and aligns the image with advertising and consumer culture. This approach reflects Pop Art’s broader engagement with popular imagery and its challenge to the hierarchy between “high” art and everyday visual culture.

Although flowers are traditionally associated with ephemerality and fragility, Warhol favours artificial, high-key colour- this example features vibrant peaches, pinks, and oranges that sing against an electric green ground, transforming the natural motif into a bold, decorative, and almost impersonal image. In doing so, Flowers encapsulates Warhol’s enduring interest in surface, seriality, and the tension between nature and the manufactured image.