The Philadelphia modernist Arthur B. Carles was a brilliant colorist and an extraordinarily innovative painter. Though Carles trained initially at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, soaking up the more conservative teaching of William Merritt Chase and Thomas Anshutz, he was deeply influenced by the avant-garde art scene in Paris during his first trip there in 1905. In 1907, Carles won the prestigious Cresson Traveling Scholarship, which enabled him to return to Paris for several more years. This experience had a profound impact on Carles as an artist; he was extremely affected by modern French painting, especially the work of Cezanne and Matisse, and by the time Carles returned home to Philadelphia in 1912, he was a confirmed modernist.

Carles began to take up still life painting more regularly in 1913 after his return to Philadelphia. In 1921, he returned briefly to France and spent the summer living at his friend Eduard Steichen’s home in Voulangis. The present work was most likely painted during this visit. Still Life with Flowers demonstrates his interest in bold color, simplified form, and two-dimensional surface design. The flowers are rendered in a loose and expressive manner, using broad strokes of pinks, purples, and turquoise blue. In fact, during this time in France, Carles felt liberated to begin using color in an increasingly expressionistic way, and he also started venturing further towards abstraction.

The first owner of the painting, Alice Riddle Kindler, was a student of Carles at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts between 1917 and 1925. She was the wife of conductor Hans Kindler, who had been hired at the Philadelphia Orchestra by Leopold Stokowski, a close friend of Carles.