Andy Warhol’s Hand-Colored Flowers complete portfolio is much like his Black and White Flowers portfolio, which was produced in the same year. Both collections are based off of images of flowers that Warhol found in a wallpaper catalogue. The series focuses on Warhol’s fascination with line drawings, similar to his work from the 1950s, which emphasizes outline more than composition.
Warhol’s application of Dr. Martin’s aniline watercolor dyes instills a prominent design element with the free flow of colors that bleed beyond the structure of their lines. Compared to Warhol’s Flowers suite from 1970, the hand-painted and hand-drawn quality of the meticulously detailed suite is decidedly a more personal, delicate approach that shows Warhol’s innate artistic sense to not shy away from different methods.
While Warhol’s work is typically more reflective of the pop art genre, the Hand-Colored Flowers complete portfolio is somewhat of a more special series, as it showcases the artist’s personal style in a more contemporary light, exhibiting his talent throughout different modes. Warhol takes recognizable flowers, such as roses and sunflowers, and maintains the integrity of the subject while still adding his own spin through abstract shadows and shading; he creates masterpieces out of the banal.
The full Hand-Colored Flowers complete portfolio includes FS II.110-119.
