Flowers

A practical man of science and a businessman, Charles Carpenter never let his fondness for art separate him from events of history and the demands of the everyday working world. Perhaps this is why he responded so strongly to the early works of Andy Warhol. Carpenter sensed their pinpoint placement in time and their power to convey tragedy, crass commercialism, high humor and intellectual gamesmanship.

The collector also had quite a sense of humor and loved works of art that provoked and challenged viewers to check their preconceptions at the door. On the same visit to the Castelli Gallery in 1964, he chose Warhol's Flowers (1964) then new and full of interesting issues concerning appropriation of extant photographic images. Discussion of this painting in the critical literature only grew more complicated and important as time went by. Warhol's seemingly innocent and casual image of a few ordinary impatiens blossoms led to a landmark legal case concerning appropriation. Generations of younger artists took this work as a reference point for their own serious or playful engagements with mass media.

--Susan Larsen (Susan C. Larsen, Ph.D. is an art historian and curator. She is currently writing a biography of the American constructivist artist and theorist, Charles Biederman.