Kiku

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)

Kiku

signed and numbered (lower left)

screenprint on Rives BFK paper

19 5/8 x 26 inches (49.8 x 66 cm)

framed: 25 1/4 x 31 3/4 inches (64.1 x 80.6 cm)

Executed 1983. This work is from an edition of 300 plus 30 artist's proofs.

Printed by Rupert Jasen Smith, New York. Published by Gendai Hanga Center, Tokyo.

PROVENANCE:

Private collection, Texas

Private collection, California

LITERATURE:

Feldman & Schellmann II.308

NOTES:

Andy Warhol (1928 - 1987) emerged as a pioneering figure at the forefront of the 1960s Pop Art movement. His vivid silkscreens of Campbell’s Soup Cans, Marilyn Monroe, and other commercial icons blurred the lines between fine art, mass production and advertising. Working across film, photography, painting and printmaking, Warhol upended traditional notions of authorship and elevated the artist to celebrity status. His Factory studio became an incubator for artistic innovation, and his incisive critique of consumerism and fame continues to shape contemporary art and popular culture today.

Commissioned in 1982 by Fujio Watanuki, a key proponent of the Japanese avant-garde, the Kiku series reflects Warhol’s growing engagement with Japanese culture and printmaking traditions. Depicting the chrysanthemum—kiku in Japanese and an enduring symbol of the Japanese Emperor—Warhol transforms this historically resonant motif through a limited palette, bold graphic color, and distinctive linear structure. The intimate scale of the work, suited to Japanese domestic spaces, extends Warhol’s long-standing exploration of floral imagery while underscoring his global reach and adaptability of Pop aesthetics.