(Pittsburgh 1928–1987 New York)
Flowers, 1964, monogrammed, dated on the left side overlap A. W. 64, acrylic, silkscreen on canvas, 5 x 5 in (12.7 x 12.7 cm), framed

This work is an equivalent of the auctioned Lot 111 in June 2020.

Provenance:
Private Collection, USA
The Major Gallery London (gallery label on the reverse)
Galerie Burkhard Eikelmann, Düsseldorf
Private Collection Germany - acquired from the above

Nowadays Andy Warhol is synonymous with Pop Art, and in his “Factory” he produced numerous works that examine American mass culture and question the myth of the “American Dream”. Looking for inspiration, Andy Warhol did not go out into nature, but instead looked at a 1964 issue of “Modern Photography” as a model for his “Flowers” series. Warhol modified the flowers photographed by Patricia Caulfield into a series of colour silkscreens. The works, which all have the same title, were first presented to the general public in 1961 in the window of the luxury shop “Bonwit Teller” in New York.
The tension between the innocence of the blooms and the mechanicality of art still makes this series fascinating today. On the one hand, the flowers Warhol selected for this series are impersonal - their source is a photograph, the reproduction place of which has never been identified. On the other hand, the works encourage the viewer to consider the flower’s rich variation and its primitive nature.
The small-format black and white Flowers show the viewer a very simplified view of a garden through the lens of Andy Warhol. The original natural variation of the plant is broken down to four white flowers that boldly face the viewer. The black background is covered by white blades of grass next to the flowers.
The series also echoes the flower power movement of the 1960s. The hippie movement advocated, among other things, a closeness to nature, a critique of consumerism and a change in the moral concepts that dominated at that time. His very successful underground film “Chelsea Girl”, which Warhol released in 1966, also deals with this movement. The film, partly shot in black and white, shows drugs, psychoses and sexual escapades and is a dark and disturbing documentation of the organisation. His “Flowers” are smaller and quieter, but all the more expressive, they are simple but bold, and it is precisely these qualities that make them still so special to this day.