Flowers of Legend and Myth

Flowers have always been a favorite subject for Cy DeCosse. He has photographed a wide variety of flowers, those growing in the fields and gardens of the Midwest, as well as exotic blooms from other parts of the world.

He discovered that, in addition to being beautiful, many of these flowers have interesting stories connected with them: Greek and Egyptian myths, traditional Native American and Persian legends, tales recounted in the Bible and ancient Chinese texts.

Printed in gum dichromate by Keith Taylor, these flowers take on a special painterly beauty appropriate to their mythic stature.

“DeCosse’s gum dichromate prints are similarly rich and painterly. The result is as lush as a 17th-century Dutch still-life.”

— Michael Abatemarco