Flower

"When I agreed to write an essay for Beane's book, at the request of a mutual friend," recounts Anthony F. Janson, noted curator and art historian, "I had no idea I would be writing about one of the greatest photographers I have ever run across. It was easy enough for me to locate his position in the history of photography and art as a whole. I saw its importance immediately. Such an approach hardly begins to meet the challenge of explaining his work."

With intensity and vision, Christopher Beane captures the beauty, and the bizarre, of the botanical. He concentrates on the overlooked detail: the veins of dehydrated petals, the textures of poppy stamens, the infinite compositions vines create, and the multiple layers that constitute a ranunculus. Flowers are one of the most traditional subjects for artwork, yet Beane brings something radically new to his flower photographs, using his unique sensibility to create uncommon art.

In 150 color and black-and-white photographs, Flower explores the precious and perishable—seed pods burst open, withered leaves curl, and frilly petals unfurl. In the accompanying text, Anthny F. Janson chronicles the development of Beane's art, as well as offering descriptions of Bean's core ideas and an essential perspective on this unique work. Janson's overview of the flower in photography and art makes for rich and engaging reading. And Beane's "flower-stories," short bloom-ographies of individual works, provide an opportunity to witness the evolution of Beane's work as understood by the artist himself.

Flower is a thing of beauty—a testament to the remarkable talent of Christopher Beane and his passionate vision

Beane's intensely imaginative photographs both connect us with the rich historical tradition of flower photography and lay the groundwork for its future. —John W. Smith, Director, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institute

Beane gives fresh meaning to the medium as a whole. Just when one thinks there is nothing new under the sun, his work makes even the most jaded viewer sit up ad take notice—Anthony F. Janson, from the text of Flower

"An oeuvre of amazing range and persuasive charm."

—Elle Decor

Christopher Beane seems to have achieved the impossible, striking a perfect balance between realism and abstraction to create a highly original body of work—Joseph Jacobs, author of Since the Harlem Renaissance and This is Not a Photograph

A dazzling, sensuous celebration of color and form by the photographer whom Architectural Digest described as "the love child of Georgia O'Keeffe and Robert Mapplethorpe."

"When I agreed to write an essay for Beane's book," recounts Anthony F. Janson, esteemed curator and professor, "I had no idea I would be writing about one of the greatest photographers I have ever run across. It was easy enough for me to locate his position in the history of photography and art as a whole. I saw its importance immediately. Such an approach hardly begins to meet the challenge of explaining his work."

With intensity, vision, and expressiveness Christopher Beane captures the beauty, and the bizarre, of the botanical. He concentrates on the overlooked detail: the veins of dehydrated petals, the textures of poppy stamens, the infinite compositions vines create, and the multiple layers that constitute a ranunculus. In 150 photographs, Flower explores the precious and perishable nature of flowers--seed pods burst open, withered leaves curl, and frilly petals unfurl. Anthony F. Janson contributes a rich and engaging overview of the core ideas that define Beane's art, offering the reader a context for thinking about this unique work, while he chronicles its development.

A thing of beauty, Flower is the gift book everyone will welcome--a testament to the remarkable talent of Christopher Beane and his passionate vision.

In 150 photographs, "Flower" explores the precious and perishable nature of flowers--seed pods burst open, withered leaves, and frilly petals. Janson contributes a rich and engaging overview of the core ideas that define Beane's art.

Christopher Beane is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design and has a background in portrait and figurative photography. After stumbling into a job in New York City's bright and offbeat flower market, Beane became obsessed with the botanical. This retrospective of his explorations over the last 12 years captures floral expression at its most remarkable.Anthony F. Janson is co-author with H. W. Janson of the seminal text History of Art.