Back

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)

 
Warhol's "Electric Chair" is undoubtedly the most macabre of Warhol's 70-odd paintings and prints from the Death and Disaster series yet its brilliant colors bring a stark, ameliorating contrast to the subject matter. The irony is that repetition and the mechanized purity of screen-prints that elevated Campbell's soup cans to fine art status serve a different purpose here. They act as desensitizing agents that, by degrees, create emotional separation from the gruesome, the macabre, death and mortality. As if to further declare his intentions, Warhol reduced the cavernous room of earlier iterations to a shallow plane, giving a more tightly focused view of the chair itself, its morbidity meliorated under blocks of yellow, pink, blue, and orange. Warhol's "Electric Chair" is undoubtedly the most macabre of Warhol's 70-odd paintings and prints from the Death and Disaster series yet its brilliant colors bring a stark, ameliorating contrast to the subject matter. The irony is that repetition and the mechanized purity of screen-prints that elevated Campbell's soup cans to fine art status serve a different purpose here. They act as desensitizing agents that, by degrees, create emotional separation from the gruesome, the macabre, death and mortality. As if to further declare his intentions, Warhol reduced the cavernous room of earlier iterations to a shallow plane, giving a more tightly focused view of the chair itself, its morbidity meliorated under blocks of yellow, pink, blue, and orange. Warhol's "Electric Chair" is undoubtedly the most macabre of Warhol's 70-odd paintings and prints from the Death and Disaster series yet its brilliant colors bring a stark, ameliorating contrast to the subject matter. The irony is that repetition and the mechanized purity of screen-prints that elevated Campbell's soup cans to fine art status serve a different purpose here. They act as desensitizing agents that, by degrees, create emotional separation from the gruesome, the macabre, death and mortality. As if to further declare his intentions, Warhol reduced the cavernous room of earlier iterations to a shallow plane, giving a more tightly focused view of the chair itself, its morbidity meliorated under blocks of yellow, pink, blue, and orange. Warhol's "Electric Chair" is undoubtedly the most macabre of Warhol's 70-odd paintings and prints from the Death and Disaster series yet its brilliant colors bring a stark, ameliorating contrast to the subject matter. The irony is that repetition and the mechanized purity of screen-prints that elevated Campbell's soup cans to fine art status serve a different purpose here. They act as desensitizing agents that, by degrees, create emotional separation from the gruesome, the macabre, death and mortality. As if to further declare his intentions, Warhol reduced the cavernous room of earlier iterations to a shallow plane, giving a more tightly focused view of the chair itself, its morbidity meliorated under blocks of yellow, pink, blue, and orange. Warhol's "Electric Chair" is undoubtedly the most macabre of Warhol's 70-odd paintings and prints from the Death and Disaster series yet its brilliant colors bring a stark, ameliorating contrast to the subject matter. The irony is that repetition and the mechanized purity of screen-prints that elevated Campbell's soup cans to fine art status serve a different purpose here. They act as desensitizing agents that, by degrees, create emotional separation from the gruesome, the macabre, death and mortality. As if to further declare his intentions, Warhol reduced the cavernous room of earlier iterations to a shallow plane, giving a more tightly focused view of the chair itself, its morbidity meliorated under blocks of yellow, pink, blue, and orange. Warhol's "Electric Chair" is undoubtedly the most macabre of Warhol's 70-odd paintings and prints from the Death and Disaster series yet its brilliant colors bring a stark, ameliorating contrast to the subject matter. The irony is that repetition and the mechanized purity of screen-prints that elevated Campbell's soup cans to fine art status serve a different purpose here. They act as desensitizing agents that, by degrees, create emotional separation from the gruesome, the macabre, death and mortality. As if to further declare his intentions, Warhol reduced the cavernous room of earlier iterations to a shallow plane, giving a more tightly focused view of the chair itself, its morbidity meliorated under blocks of yellow, pink, blue, and orange. Warhol's "Electric Chair" is undoubtedly the most macabre of Warhol's 70-odd paintings and prints from the Death and Disaster series yet its brilliant colors bring a stark, ameliorating contrast to the subject matter. The irony is that repetition and the mechanized purity of screen-prints that elevated Campbell's soup cans to fine art status serve a different purpose here. They act as desensitizing agents that, by degrees, create emotional separation from the gruesome, the macabre, death and mortality. As if to further declare his intentions, Warhol reduced the cavernous room of earlier iterations to a shallow plane, giving a more tightly focused view of the chair itself, its morbidity meliorated under blocks of yellow, pink, blue, and orange. Warhol's "Electric Chair" is undoubtedly the most macabre of Warhol's 70-odd paintings and prints from the Death and Disaster series yet its brilliant colors bring a stark, ameliorating contrast to the subject matter. The irony is that repetition and the mechanized purity of screen-prints that elevated Campbell's soup cans to fine art status serve a different purpose here. They act as desensitizing agents that, by degrees, create emotional separation from the gruesome, the macabre, death and mortality. As if to further declare his intentions, Warhol reduced the cavernous room of earlier iterations to a shallow plane, giving a more tightly focused view of the chair itself, its morbidity meliorated under blocks of yellow, pink, blue, and orange. Warhol's "Electric Chair" is undoubtedly the most macabre of Warhol's 70-odd paintings and prints from the Death and Disaster series yet its brilliant colors bring a stark, ameliorating contrast to the subject matter. The irony is that repetition and the mechanized purity of screen-prints that elevated Campbell's soup cans to fine art status serve a different purpose here. They act as desensitizing agents that, by degrees, create emotional separation from the gruesome, the macabre, death and mortality. As if to further declare his intentions, Warhol reduced the cavernous room of earlier iterations to a shallow plane, giving a more tightly focused view of the chair itself, its morbidity meliorated under blocks of yellow, pink, blue, and orange. Warhol's "Electric Chair" is undoubtedly the most macabre of Warhol's 70-odd paintings and prints from the Death and Disaster series yet its brilliant colors bring a stark, ameliorating contrast to the subject matter. The irony is that repetition and the mechanized purity of screen-prints that elevated Campbell's soup cans to fine art status serve a different purpose here. They act as desensitizing agents that, by degrees, create emotional separation from the gruesome, the macabre, death and mortality. As if to further declare his intentions, Warhol reduced the cavernous room of earlier iterations to a shallow plane, giving a more tightly focused view of the chair itself, its morbidity meliorated under blocks of yellow, pink, blue, and orange.
Electric Chair197135 3/8 x 47 3/4 in.(89.85 x 121.29 cm) screenprint in colors on woven paper
Provenance
Private Collection
Literature
Feldman, F. & Schellmann, J., 1985, Andy Warhol Prints: a catalogue raisonné, R. Feldman Fine Arts, II.81

50,000

Warhol's "Electric Chair" is undoubtedly the most macabre of Warhol's 70-odd paintings and prints from the Death and Disaster series yet its brilliant colors bring a stark, ameliorating contrast to the subject matter. The irony is that repetition and the mechanized purity of screen-prints that elevated Campbell's soup cans to fine art status serve a different purpose here. They act as desensitizing agents that, by degrees, create emotional separation from the gruesome, the macabre, death and mortality. As if to further declare his intentions, Warhol reduced the cavernous room of earlier iterations to a shallow plane, giving a more tightly focused view of the chair itself, its morbidity meliorated under blocks of yellow, pink, blue, and orange.
Inquire