‘There is a close relationship between flowers and convicts. The fragility and delicacy of the former are of the same nature as the brutal insensitivity of the latter. Should I have to portray a convict – or a criminal – I shall so bedeck him in flowers that, as he disappears beneath them, he will himself become a flower, a gigantic and new one.’ (Jean Genet as quoted in M. Lobek ‘In Transitition: Warhol’s Flowers’ in Andy Warhol Flowers, New York: Ekyn Maclean, 2012, n.p.)
Andy Warhol’s Flowers are an iconic series in oeuvre the pop artist. Flowers (Four Yellow), 1964 is a brilliant example of Warhol’s most remarkable themes: serialisation, beauty and creation of immortal icons. Placed on a black background, the four yellow flowers are swallowed up in the darkness. The conception of Flowers overlapped with Thirteen Most Wanted Men, a controversial mural of criminals’ photos that Warhol created for the 1964 World’s Fair. Warhol himself noticed the connection between flowers and felons: ‘Mr Golden (the printer) make in black + white line sort of / make like my 13 most wanted men’. (Frei and Printz, The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné, vol.02A:293). Viewed under this light, the flowers seem to assume funerary connotations.
However, Flowers represent also a rupture from the previous dark series and mark the beginning of a new, brighter era. It was Warhol’s friend, Henry Geldzahler, curator at the Metropolitan Museum, who encouraged him to produce a fresh series of works. Geldzahler remembers saying to Warhol: 'Enough death and disaster, Andy, it's time again for life. ‘What do you mean’, [Andy] said. I serendipitously picked a magazine off the floor and flipped it to a two-page advertisement with a colour photograph of flowers.' (H. Geldzahler, Making it New: Essays, Interviews and Talks, New York, 1994, p. 39). The photograph, published in June 1964 issue of Modern Photography, was taken by the executive editor Patricia Caulfield. A collection of the Flowers paintings was exhibited at the prestigious Leo Castelli Gallery in late 1964 and marked a career milestone for Warhol. The exhibition sold out within days and Flowers became his most celebrated series: they are an eternal reminder of Warhol’s artistry not only to define beauty but also to make a simple object a fantastic, ever-lasting icon.