Flowers #10 1970

Andy Warhol made this print, Flowers #10, with bold colours and graphic simplicity. Just imagine him there in his studio, the silkscreen ink squeegeed across the surface, pulling these images into being. Warhol, like many of us painters, was probably thinking about the history of flower painting, maybe riffing on traditions while also messing with them. I can see him playing with the idea of reproduction, transforming something natural into a mass-produced image. The high-contrast colors, like that bright, almost acidic green, and the way he repeats the floral motif, give the piece a kind of pop energy. I see his engagement with commercial processes, and a comment on the blurring of lines between art and commodity. It's almost as if he's asking: can a flower, so often seen as delicate and precious, become a symbol of mass culture?