Flowers (F. & S. II.110-119) (complete set)

Across the ten sheets of Flowers (F. & S. II.110-119), Warhol uses colour sparingly, washing it into some areas and leaving others as bare line. In one, a single cream rose rises from a pink bottle set on a diagonal pink band. In another, yellow and white blooms spill from a pale blue vase. A deep purple vase holds a tall, pale feathered leaf, and a looping pink stem bends back on itself around a small flower. Elsewhere, a red-orange sunflower sits against a grey-green branch, and a curving magenta cord, tied in a knot, sweeps past a green vase on a stacked base. The watercolour often slips past the printed outlines, so each sheet looks closer to a coloured drawing than to a print.

The Flowers (hand-coloured) series pairs this set with a black and white version of the same ten images. To make them, Warhol traced floral pictures from wallpaper samples and a flower-arranging book using a projector, then kept the drawn line rather than his usual photographic method. Because the watercolour was added by hand, no two impressions are exactly alike. The series marks a gentler, more hand-made side of Warhol’s 1970s printmaking, far from the flat, bright hibiscus blossoms of his 1964 and 1970 Flowers.