Alfred Cohen: An American Artist in Europe - Between Figuration and Abstraction

Cohen painted flower compositions throughout his career, ranging from: feathery Impressionism in the 1950s, to a heavier, more outlined and Expressionist treatment in the 1960s (as in Simple Flowers); wilder, more exuberant, sketch-like compositions in the 1970s, and more formal, stylised arrangements, drawing on elaborately patterned, Dutch Golden Age decorative flower pictures in his last two decades - though painted in a more simplified, Post-impressionist manner. This stylised painting shows his perennial interest in the way images can flip between being representational and abstract.