‘Warhol Flowers V’, 1964 - WILLIAM JOHN KENNEDY (WJK)

Andy Warhol in a field of black-eyed Susans holding a bouquet of flowers with an early “Flowers” canvas serving as a backdrop in Flushing, Queens, New York

Chromogenic Print
Edition: 60 with 7 Artist Proofs
20 x 30 inches / 50.8 x 76.2 cm
Printed: 2010-2012
16/60

The late William John Kennedy was a broad-shouldered and handsome young man when he and his camera were a staple of the bohemian netherworld of Warhol’s legendary factory in the early 60s, and Warhol was rumoured to have had something of a swooning attraction to him. And it is perhaps for this very reason that his photographs shine such an unusually candid light on the legend.

The reactions elicited by William John Kennedy’s remarkably intimate portraits of Andy Warhol in an urban garden of sunflowers are not entirely explained by their formal beauty. The true power of the images comes from the photographer’s ability to capture Warhol as a private person in the early days of a career that would come to shape contemporary art. These beautiful portraits communicate a rare vulnerability that would later be unrecognisable in a carefully constructed public persona.