“I Always Notice Flowers”: Andy Warhol’s Floral Legacy
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast:
August 6, 1928
Darlings of the dirt and divas of the dahlia, gather 'round!
On this day, our artistic cosmos welcomed one Andrew Warhola—better known to us as Andy Warhol—who graced this earthly garden in 1928.
The delicious Mr. Warhol painted a series called Flowers that debuted in 1964.
This collection, my tender tulip admirers, was utterly unique. Warhol, with his magpie eye, plucked the original photo from a magazine called Modern Photography.
All canvases in Warhol's Flowers series were perfectly square—a scandalously satisfying symmetry. He confined himself to only 24 and 48-inch canvases, darlings. In these paintings, Warhol applied his masterful use of color, making the flowers positively scream with vibrancy against their backgrounds—rather like how my fuchsias stand out against that ghastly fence my neighbor refuses to repaint.
Although Warhol's Flowers have been compared to Van Gogh's bouquets and Matisse's Cutouts, no one seemed able to agree what blooms were actually depicted, my precious perennial partners. The New York Herald Tribune identified the blossoms as anemones. The Village Voice insisted they were nasturtiums. Other publications declared them pansies.
There was no definitive answer, you see. The series of prints showed identical flowers repeatedly in different color combinations and backgrounds—rather like how we gardeners plant the same reliable specimens year after year, only to be delighted by their ever-changing presentations.
"My fascination with letting images repeat and repeat - manifests my belief that we spend much of our lives seeing without observing."
Warhol's Flower series is considered a likely source for the phrase "flower power," which became the rallying cry for the non-violence movement.
Whether this attribution is accurate or merely garden gossip, Warhol's psychedelic blossoms were undeniably synchronized with the movement, my dear she-shed besties.
Warhol's assistant once recalled with remarkable candor:
"When Warhol... made flowers, it reflected the urban, dark, death side of that whole flower power movement... there is a lot of depth in there."
Warhol's inclinations aligned beautifully with the 1960's flower children.
He once wished aloud, with a simplicity that would make even the most modest sweet pea blush:
"I think everybody should like everybody."
My favorite Andy Warhol quote—one that we soil-stained devotees will instantly recognize as truth—was his simple declaration:
"I always notice flowers."
And isn't that just it, my petal-loving companions?
In a world where so much rushes past unappreciated, we—like Warhol—have trained our eyes to detect beauty in what others might dismiss as common.
We catch the first unfurling bud, the subtle shift in autumn color, the dance of shadows across a morning garden.
Perhaps in this way, we are all artists of Warhol's philosophy, celebrating repetition while finding the extraordinary variations that make each bloom—and each day—a masterpiece.
