Flowers for Lisa: A Delirium of Photograpic Invention - Hardcover

"A plain glass vase, a few simple flowers. The photographer Abelardo Morell offers a paean to his feelings - and evokes a cavalcade of art heroes." -- The New York Times "Morell turns a common, fleeting romantic gesture-giving flowers to a loved one-into something lasting and permanent: a series of 76 hypnotic photographs, made using a variety of techniques, that commemorate his love for his wife." -- Photo District News "Beginning the series is an intricate arrangement achieved through digitally merging multiple exposures of twenty separate bouquets, resulting in a dynamic and vibrant burst of colours erupting out of the vase like fireworks; later in the book, Morell presents Photoshop's interpretation and recreation of Severin Roesen Flower Still Life with Bird's Nest (1853)." -- AnOther "the most exhilarating photo book of the year" "The book is a tour de force, a sustained burst of emotion, and a transferable unit of joy." -- The New York Times Book Review Holiday Issue

Best known for his surreal camera obscura pictures and luminous black-and-white photographs of books, photographer Abelardo Morell now turns his transformative lens to one of the most common of artistic subjects, the flower. The concept for Flowers for Lisa emerged when Morell gave his wife, Lisa, a photograph of flowers on her birthday. "Flowers are part of a long tradition of still life in art," writes Morell. "Precisely because flowers are such a conventional subject, I felt a strong desire to describe them in new, inventive ways." With nods to the work of Jan Brueghel, Edouard Manet, Georgia O'Keeffe, Rene Magritte, and others, Morell does just that; the images are as innovative as they are arresting.