Flowers

"Warhol derived his flowers from a color photograph of seven hibiscus blossoms (three of which bled off the left edge), printed as a two-page foldout in the June 1964 issue of Modern Photography. (Many viewers misidentified the flowers, perhaps because the petals were drastically flattened as a result of the artist's silkscreen process...) The photograph was shot by Patricia Caulfield, the magazine's executive editor, and it was used to illustrate an article on a Kodak color processor designed for amateurs. The flowers in Caulfield's picture are pink, red, and yellow, and shown against foliage that more nearly resembles a coniferous-type shrub than hibiscus leaves" (D. Bourdon, Andy Warhol, New York, 1989, p. 191).