Andy Warhol Flowers (Black and White) Print (F & S II.100 - 109) Portfolio For sale

Flowers is a portfolio of ten screenprints produced in 1974. Though Warhol screenprinted them, they are copied from Warhol’s original drawings, therefore combining two of the artist’s chosen mediums. Warhol also created a hand-coloured counterpart of the portfolio in the same year. Each print portrays a different flower in a different setting.  

This collection is an important one as it reminds us of Warhol’s artistic roots in illustration: drawing was Warhol’s very first medium, preceding screenprinting and photography. Here his swift, delicate draftsmanship is demonstrated brilliantly. Crucially, Warhol’s choice to copy these onto the stencil for printing creates an interplay between the private, introspective nature of drawing with the mechanised production of printing. 

Warhol’s Flowers prints feature whimsical details such as feathers and stylish vases: they are domestic and tender in a way that seems far from his ventures into celebrity and pop culture. Whilst they may seem an outlier, the artist constantly evolved his practice to move away from what was expected of him. Indeed, Warhol often turned to the natural world (Sunsets, the earlier Flowers series in 1970) for his more emotive works.