ANDY WARHOL, FLOWERS (F. & S. II.114), FLOWERS (HAND-COLOURED) SERIES, SIGNED SCREEN PRINT, EDITION OF 250, 1974
Flowers (F. S. II.112), part of the Flowers (Hand-Coloured) series (1974), is one of Andy Warhol’s more atypical prints. Reminiscent of 19th century Japanese woodblock prints, this print shows a delicately rendered flower in subdued tones of green and cream in a pale pink vase, set against a simple cream background. As with many of Warhol’s prints, form, colour and composition are flattened and simplified, but what makes this print notable is its organic and gestural use of fine lines.
Warhol consciously maintains a hand-drawn quality in the Flowers (Hand-Coloured) series that alludes to the artist’s personal touch, producing a more contemplative image that transcends the ‘machine-like’ aesthetic. His earlier Flower series’ from 1964 and 1970 are unmistakably Pop in their brilliant, synthetic hues and erasure of the artist’s touch, however this later series is more illustrative in style, similar to the work of David Hockney and Alex Katz.
For the Flowers (Hand-Coloured) series, Warhol abandoned his photographic print technique to instead focus on line and composition. Using wallpaper samples and the book Interpretative Flower Designs by Mrs Raymond Rus Stolz as his source material, Warhol used an opaque projector to copy from these images and create the delicately rendered image. Every print in the series is unique in that they were each coloured by a studio assistant with Dr. Martin’s aniline watercolour dyes. Flowers (F. & S. II.114) amalgamates the hand-drawn with the mass-produced, and originality with appropriation, in his use of the screen printing technique, hand-dying and the copied image through organically drawn lines.
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ABOUT ANDY WARHOL
Andy Warhol (born Andrew Warhola) is a name synonymous with the celebrity culture and mass consumerism which coloured the boulevards of New York City in the Post World War II era. Born into a working class immigrant family in the urban landscape around the bustling metropolis, Warhol’s early life was characterised by a climb up the capitalist rungs of society.
The artist himself noted, “buying is more American than thinking, and I’m as American as they come”, this quote came to demarcate Warhol’s artistic practice as he embraced the commodification of the American Dream. The Pop artist’s beginnings in the business sector gave him the practical skill set to experiment with a more commercial approach to art throughout his career, particularly with regards to screen printing. Read more about Andy Warhol.
