Kiku Flower

Andy Warhol Kiku Flowers is a range of artworks created by artist Andy Warhol.

Capitalizing on Warhol’s strong appeal to Japanese collectors, members of the Gendai Hanga Center in Tokyo asked Warhol in 1982 to create a body of work specifically for them, focusing in particular on images of flowers. Warhol agreed, and created a beautiful series of images inspired by the chrysanthemum (the traditional symbol representing the Japanese emperor and Imperial House). The exhibition was a success and Warhol’s exquisite prints for the “Kiku” (the Japanese word for chrysanthemum) exhibition have since become highly regarded by both critics and collectors.

When Andy Warhol first burst onto the artistic stage in the 1960s’, he did so by incorporating images that were firmly embedded in the American psyche. His bright and colorful paintings and serigraphs presented images that were commonplace — a soup can or coke bottle — but were transformed by his technique into artistic icons of popular culture. Warhol was most interested in image and not reality, although one could say that by casting these mass produced commercial images in his own unique style, Warhol was making a comment on the reality of living in a world that was dominated by images from the advertising and entertainment industries. Warhol’s prints are in essence images of images. They are at least once removed, and often several times removed, from reality. His famous prints of Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy, not to mention countless other celebrities, are based on photographs. As in the case with Marilyn Monroe, many of those photographs are of his subjects posing as a character, not as themselves, a subtle reminder that once someone achieves a certain celebrity status, they become further and further removed from their real selves. How many layers must one remove to finally see the real person depicted in a Warhol print?