Flowers provided a profound source of joy for Stella. Although he rarely noted the symbolism of his floral subjects, they must have carried personal meaning for him, appearing as a leitmotif throughout his work, such as the lily, the lotus, or the variegated leaves of a tropical plant. He often arranged his botanical compositions in unexpected ways—as larger-than-life close-ups or in ambiguous, unlikely settings. Yet, he also painted traditional tabletop still lifes of flowers or fruit set in his studio. Regardless of how conventional the format, he approached even the most quotidian subject with personal flair, adding a dimension of emotion to a composition through his unexpected use of color, setting, or scale.

In the final years of his life, flowers assumed an even more central role for Stella, who continued to view nature as a metaphor for his own existence and death. “I may ask one simple thing,” he said in a 1929 interview, “to be left free to face the Sun.”

In his early days, he had buoyed himself with frequent trips to the New York Botanical Garden to enjoy the warmth and color under the protection of the glass conservatory. When his health began to suffer around 1940, he turned inward to the small and modest renderings of flowers created in his studio.

— Stephanie Mayer Heydt, excerpt from "Joseph Stella: Visionary Nature"