“What is incredible about the best of the flower paintings … is that they present a distillation of much of the strength of Warhol's art-the flash of beauty that suddenly becomes tragic under the viewer's gaze” (Though early erroneous reports on his new body of work suggested the image was lifted from a housewife’s award-winning entry to a photography competition hosted by an unidentified women’s magazine.) This source photograph was part of a series depicting hibiscus flowers that had been taken by the magazine’s editor Patricia Caulfield to demonstrate different camera techniques. In 1964, he turned his silkscreen attention to a photo of flowers that he had discovered in that year’s June issue of Modern Photography. “The reason I'm painting this way is because I want to be a machine,” Warhol said. He began by making silkscreen prints of his own drawings of dollar bills, but quickly moved on to reproducing images based on existing photographs (think, Marilyn and Jackie, Liz, Liza, and Mao). At the time, it wasn’t a popular medium, but Warhol was attracted to the way in which it allowed him to evoke the process of mass production. In 1962, Warhol began to experiment with silk-screen printing. The authorities were quickly called to the scene, but the only trace that remains of one of Warhol’s printing devices that produced pieces that now sell for thousands is an entry in the FBI’s National Stolen Art file. Among the works of art taken was one of the original silkscreens Andy Warhol used to make his Flowers series.
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