Donald Sultan — Lantern Flowers For Sale

Lantern Flowers | Donald Sultan | Guy Hepner, New York

Market Performance

The Lantern Flowers series has achieved consistent auction results, with Lantern Flowers, Feb 18 achieving US$12,112 and the Little Lantern Flowers (Portfolio of 8) realising US$15,240. Red Lantern Flowers has traded at US$8,925, and White Lantern Flowers at US$5,040 at Phillips.

About the Series

Lantern Flowers takes its name from the pendant, bell-like bloom of the lantern flower, a form Sultan renders in his characteristically simplified graphic style — reduced to bold, high-contrast silhouettes built up through his signature combination of oil, tar, and spackle-derived print textures. Where his Poppies present flowers as monumental, upright geometry, the lantern flower's downward-hanging shape gives this series a quieter, more contemplative register within Sultan's broader botanical vocabulary.

The 2025 portfolio Little Lantern Flowers comprises eight silkscreen prints, including White Lantern Flowers, each measuring 18 x 18 inches and issued in an edition of 30. Sultan has also extended the motif into three dimensions with sculptural wall works such as Three Blue Lantern Flowers and Three Red Lantern Flowers (2022), made from shaped aluminum with coloured flocking, issued in editions of 12 and measuring a considerably larger 54 x 31 inches — a scale that gives the pendant bloom form real architectural presence on the wall.

Available across Aqua, Red, Silver, and White colourways, the Lantern Flowers series is particularly prized by collectors drawn to a more meditative register than the scale and directness of Sultan's Poppies. In 2025, American University's Katzen Arts Center featured Lantern Flowers alongside Poppies and Mimosas in an exhibition tracing the evolution of Sultan's print practice, underscoring the motif's place within his decades-long exploration of still life, industrial material, and simplified botanical form.