ANDY WARHOL'S FLOWER PAINTINGS

to NOV. 21 - DEC. 17, 1964: ANDY WARHOL'S FIRST SHOW AT CASTELLI'S

Andy Warhol's Flowers were based on a color photograph of hisbiscus blossoms taken by Patricia Caulfield which appeared in the June 1964 issue of Modern Photography magazine. (AWM11). When Caulfield saw Warhol's Flowers, she brought a lawsuit against the artist and was offered two sets of Flowers portfolios as payment for use of her work, but she declined the offer and a cash settlement was arranged.

Gerard Malanga:

"Andy realized that he had to be very careful about appropriating for the fear of being sued again. He opted to start taking his own photographs. His entry into photography vis a vis his creation of silkscreen paintings was done out of necessity." (AWP116)

Ronnie Cutrone, Warhol's assistant for ten years (from 1972-1982) thought the early Flower paintings were about "life and death":

Ronnie Cutrone:

"A lot of Andy's work revolves around that subject. The Marilyn paintings are about life and death, the Flowers are with their black, menacing background. Not the watercolor Flowers - there is nothing menacing about those flowers at all. I'm talking about the first Flowers from 1964 - they are a bit menacing. We kids - Andy used to call everyone a 'kid' until they were eighty-five years old - all knew about that. Lou Reed, Silver George Milloway, Ondine, and me - we all knew the dark side of those Flowers. Don't forget, at that time, there was flower power and flower children. We were the roots, the dark roots of that whole movement. None of us were hippies or flower children. Instead, we used to goof on it. We were into black leather and vinyl and whips and S&M and shooting up and speed. There was nothing flower power about that. So when Warhol and that whole scene made Flowers, it reflected the urban, dark, death side of that whole movement. And as decorative art, it's pretty dense. There is a lot of depth in there... You have this shadowy dark grass, which is not pretty, and then you have these big, wonderful, brightly colored flowers. It was always that juxtaposition that appears in his art again and again that I particularly love." (UW61)

to NOV. 21 - DEC. 17, 1964: ANDY WARHOL'S FIRST SHOW AT CASTELLI'S