Gardenias 

Alexander Patrick Fleming created this print of Gardenias sometime in the mid-20th century. As we can see, the gardenia is presented to us in a tightly cropped composition. It has a formal symmetry and a balance that might remind us of a carefully arranged photograph or advertisement from that time. The mid-20th century saw a rise in mass media and consumer culture in the United States, and Fleming’s gardenias appear to engage with this shift. Gardenias were fashionable in the 1930s and 40s, worn by sophisticated women and appearing in commercial imagery. The flower itself becomes an emblem of luxury in this historical context. To understand this work better, we might turn to period fashion magazines and advertisements, or histories of commercial art. In the end, what we find is that art objects such as this are not just beautiful things, but can serve as fascinating documents of the ways societies represent themselves.