Flowers (Hand-Colored) 118 by Andy Warhol is one of ten hand-colored screenprints from the artist’s 1974 Hand-Colored Flowers portfolio. A rounded bottle, washed with soft pink watercolor, anchors the composition while a single blossom blooms from its narrow neck. Broad leaves extend outward in opposite directions, framing the vessel with confident black linework. The restrained palette and generous white space create a quiet sense of balance, allowing every contour to remain clear and expressive.
Warhol’s Hand-Colored Botanical Studies
The Flowers (Hand-Colored) series followed Black and White Flowers, which explored Warhol’s fascination with line drawing and simple composition. Both portfolios originated from illustrations in the wallpaper catalogue Interpretive Flower Designs. However, the later series introduces carefully applied color while preserving the original contours. The transparent watercolor washes soften the printed outlines and give each composition the freshness of an original drawing.
Printer Alexander Heinrici first produced the screenprinted outlines for the portfolio. Warhol and his assistants then applied subtle washes of pigment using Dr. Martin’s aniline watercolor dyes. Consequently, each impression displays slight variations in tone while remaining faithful to the edition. This collaborative process combines the precision of screenprinting with the individuality of hand coloring. Moreover, the transparent washes soften the bold contours without obscuring them, creating a delicate balance between graphic design and painterly expression.
Flowers (Hand-Colored) 118 in Warhol’s Larger Body of Work
Works like Flowers (Hand-Colored) 118 reveal a quieter side of Warhol’s artistic practice. Instead of relying on the bold imagery associated with Pop Art, Warhol returned to the elegant illustrative language of his early commercial career. During that period, he created advertisements for shoes and other consumer goods by drawing them. The hand-applied watercolor washes restore a visible sense of the artist’s touch. As a result, this portfolio feels more intimate than many of Warhol’s deliberately objective works, including Campbell’s Soup and the Coke paintings.
Photo credit: Andy Warhol at the opening of his Flowers exhibition, Galerie Ileana Sonnabend, Paris. Photo by Harry Shunk & János Kender, May 12, 1965.
