Andy Warhol - Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Friday, October 17, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Ethel and Robert Scull, New York; Leo Castelli, New York; Mrs. J. Irwin Miller; Cummins Engine Company, Columbus

  • Exhibited

    Indianapolis Museum of Art, Art from Business and Corporate Collections, 25 May - 26 June, 1977

  • Literature

    G. Frei, N. Printz and S. King-Nero, The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonne, Paintings and Sculptures 1964-1969 02B, New York, 2004, cat. no. 1498, n.p. (illustrated)

  • Catalogue Essay

    “It is the flash of beauty that suddenly metaphors that becomes tragic under the viewers gaze. The garish and brilliantly coloured flowers always gravitate towards the surrounding blackness and finally end up in a sea of morbidity. No matter how much one wishes these flowers to remain they perish under one’s gaze as if haunted by death.” (J. Coplans, Andy Warhol, Greenwich, 1970, p. 52).
     
    Emerging alongside some of his most famous works, Andy Warhol’s Flower series began in the summer of 1964, whilst he was drifting between dealers before joining Leo Castelli’s Gallery in November that year. To mark his first
    show with his new dealer, Warhol created a new set of works, silkscreening the motif of the Flowers onto canvas. Differing in colour and size, Warhol’s Flower Paintings have become an essential motif within his artistic repertoire and belong to a unique series of work, which were executed during a transitional, yet decisive stage in his life and career.
     
    Whilst debuting his Flowers exhibition at Castelli, Warhol continued working on the motif and developed four more series in varying sizes. These included the 22, the 14, the eight and the five inch paintings, of which the 22 inch series was commissioned by Ethel and Robert Scull. Whereas the remaining sizes were executed for Warhol’s second exhibition that was to be held at Sonnabend in Paris in 1965. Cropping and shaping the Flower paintings allowed for the perfect square shape, in all sizes. These works become signature early Pop art icons, while
    simultaneously embodying a series of work that had become Warhol’s first major commercial success.
     
    Continuing his appropriation technique, Warhol adopted the motif of the flower from a photo by Patricia Caulfield that he had come across in a magazine article. The idea however, to use the image for an entire body of work, had originally been suggested by Henry Geldzahler, then curator of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, who encouraged Warhol to distance himself from his Death & Disaster series and opt for the flower image that had been featured in the Modern Photography magazine. Turning to the flower for inspiration for this monumental and seminal body of work, a symbol of nature that for as long as painters have applied pigment to canvas, or artisans have perfected their craft, the flower – in all its symbolism, fragility, and mysterious allure has lent itself throughout art history as the perfect subject.
     
    It is therefore to be expected that Warhol would have borrowed a subject matter of perfection to become the motif of his new body of work – a body of work that in its pureness and ‘flower power’ radiance has proven to be one of Warhol’s most successful and recognized series that perhaps underlines Warhol’s objectives as an artist and art icon:  
    “Business art is the step that comes after Art. I started as a commercial artist, and I want to finish as a business artist.” (AndyWarhol)

  • Artist Biography

    Andy Warhol

    American • 1928 - 1987

    Andy Warhol was the leading exponent of the Pop Art movement in the U.S. in the 1960s. Following an early career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol achieved fame with his revolutionary series of silkscreened prints and paintings of familiar objects, such as Campbell's soup tins, and celebrities, such as Marilyn Monroe. Obsessed with popular culture, celebrity and advertising, Warhol created his slick, seemingly mass-produced images of everyday subject matter from his famed Factory studio in New York City. His use of mechanical methods of reproduction, notably the commercial technique of silk screening, wholly revolutionized art-making.

    Working as an artist, but also director and producer, Warhol produced a number of avant-garde films in addition to managing the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground and founding Interview magazine. A central figure in the New York art scene until his untimely death in 1987, Warhol was notably also a mentor to such artists as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

     

    View More Works

326

Flowers

1964
Silkscreen inks on linen.
55.9 x 55.9 cm (22 x 22 in).
Signed and dated 'Andy Warhol 64' on the overlap.

Estimate
£600,000 - 800,000 

Sold for £735,650

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

18 Oct 2008, 7pm
London