Warhol started to paint flowers in 1964, after his violent piece Thirteen Most Wanted Men. His flowers were based off a photograph of Hibiscus flowers taken by the then executive editor of Modern Photography magazine, Patricia Caulfield. Warhol did not paint these flowers from nature but admitted he appropriated one of Caulfield’s photographs. In 1966, Patricia Caulfield sued Andy Warhol.
Ronnie Cutrone (Warhol’s main assistant): “You have this shadowy dark grass, which is not pretty, and then you have these big, wonderful, brightly colored flowers. It was always that juxtaposition that appears in his art again and again that I particularly love”.
Warhol decided to paint them on a square format: “I like painting on a square because you don’t have to decide whether it should be longer-longer or shorter-shorter or longer-shorter”.
