In 1962 Warhol began making paintings of Campbell’s soup cans, reproducing the image used by the brand on their labels. The image was projected onto canvas, outlined in pencil and painted. Warhol used this method several times, albeit changing the forms that he represented and the size of the support. After showing the multiple Campbell soup cans arranged in a grid in one of his exhibitions, Warhol began using the same system to represent massproduced objects such as stamps, labels and banknotes.

Flowers is an example of Andy Warhol’s appropriation of preexisting images. The image was taken from a photography magazine, where it illustrated an article about a Kodak color processor. The original image showed seven hibiscus flowers, but Warhol removed three so that the remaining ones could fit on a square canvas. The artist commented that he liked the format because of its ever-perfect proportions, not having a horizontal or vertical orientation.