Acid Iris

Lowell Blair Nesbitt

"Acid Iris" was done in 1974 at Editions Press in San Francisco while Nesbitt was preparing for the printing and publication of his "Les Fleur du Mal" suite of color lithographs. "Acid Iris" was done in three color states, this being the third. Each was done in an edition of 12 impressions.

Lowell Nesbitt has been stylistically grouped with the Photorealists, but his images were more interpretively distorted, somewhat loosely painted and boldly abbreviated. He had many subjects: studio interiors, articles of clothing, piles of shoes and groupings of fruits and vegetables. He also painted his dog, a Rottweiler named Echo; the Neoclassical facades of SoHo's 19th-century cast-iron buildings and several of Manhattan's major bridges.

Despite such variety, Nesbitt was best known for up close images of irises, roses, lilies and other flowers, which he often depicted in close-up so that their petals seemed to fill the canvas. His imagery was frequently dramatic, implicitly sexual and a little ominous and they earned the artist a popularity with the general public.