Andy Warhol (1928-1987) was an American artist, a leading figure of the Pop Art movement. ​Using a variety of media materials from photographs up to computer-generated art, Warhol's works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity, culture and advertisement that flourished by the 1960s.
Emerging from the poverty and obscurity of an Eastern European immigrant family in Pittsburgh, Warhol became a charismatic magnet for bohemian New York. In 1960, he began to produce his first canvases depicting Popeye and Dick Tracy. After Marilyn Monroe’s death in August 1962, he started working from snapshots of the star’s already legendary face, which had been widely distributed by the world’s press. His choice of subjects clearly relates to an obsession with demise – his Marilyns, his Ten Lizies (created when the actress Elizabeth Taylor was seriously ill), and also his Elvis. Part of the “Death and Disaster” series, Andy Warhol´s Marilyn Monroes are undoubtedly iconic portraits of our era, exploring as they do the artist’s fascination for images of death and beauty. He worked across many media as a painter, printmaker, illustrator, film-maker, and writer, and produced many world-famous series. Andy Warhol Flower´s series reinterprets a traditional motif spanning the history of art, while Warhol´s Cambell´s Soup Can series represents the mass-produced, printed advertisements that inspired him since his childhood. Towards the end of 1962, the artist turned to the photo-silkscreen process, which became his signature medium. From 1963 up until 1968, the year in which he was shot, Warhol – surrounded by assistants in his studio The Factory – took the industrial character of his work to its climax. Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions and books, as well as feature and documentary films. The Andy Warhol Museum in his native city, Pittsburgh, is the largest museum in the United States dedicated to a single artist. Andy Warhol´s artworks are some of the most influential works of art of the second half of the twentieth century, representing the most recognizable images ever produced.

Andy Warhol

Obsessed with celebrity, consumer culture, and mechanical reproduction, Pop artist Andy Warhol created some of the 20th century’s most iconic images.

https://data.wengcontemporary.com/media/Andy_Warhol_Flowers_Content_Sheet_2023.pdf

Throughout art history, the flower and its symbolism have been a subject matter for many renowned artists. Andy Warhol explored the qualities of the flower image through his Pop Art prism in the Flower series of 1964, thus creating cartoon-like symbols that would be instantly recognised.

The 1964 Flower series became one of his most iconic and successful works.  Based on a discovered photograph of hibiscus blossoms, Warhol drenched the flowers’ floppy shapes with a variation of vibrant colours, transforming them into psychedelic indoor décor. Playing with traditional art historical themes, Andy Warhol gave a particular twist to this historically accepted symbol of life. The electric colours of his flowers, drawn from a darker and rich undergrowth background might be the indicator of an extreme vision of life, a life lived on the edge.

The present work has been published in 1968 by Modern Master Tapestries, New York.

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“ Cheerful and refreshing Flowers series includes some of Warhol's most lushly colored, decorative, and ingratiating works. „

—Andy Warhol