Andy Warhol – Electric Chairs

PUBLISHED IN: Art Brochures
Electric Chairs197135 3/8 x 47 7/8 in. ea.screenprint
Provenance

Julian Schnabel, purchased directly from the artist
Private Collection
Private Collection, New York

Literature

Feldman & Schellmann II.74-83

More Info

all works by Andy Warhol

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Society portraiture was an inventive exercise for Warhol at a time when formal portraits were thought of as a relic of a bygone era. More than a decade before creating the present example, "Portrait of a Lady" (1984), Warhol began referring to himself as "just a travelling society painter." Many of his best-known works are his commissioned pieces of glamorous and prominent figures of popular culture. All of his society portraits are the same dimensions as Warhol wanted them to be able to fit together in one space, forming one large Portrait of Society. <br> <br>In preparation for each portrait, Warhol took several Polaroids of his subject. From these initial Polaroids, he developed screens for the unique portrait to be printed in ink over the painted canvas. Warhol completed his first commissioned portrait in 1963, of Ethel Scull. The portraits could be commissioned in groups, and sitters could have more than one made with varying colors and subtle differences in execution.
ANDY WARHOL
Portrait of a Lady
1984
40 x 40 x 1 1/2 in.
synthetic polymer and silkscreen colors on canvas

Andy Warhol's portrait of Dorothy Blau highlights the close ties between them and is evidence of how each pushed the other. Blau was a close friend of Andy Warhol and a pillar of the art scene in Miami. She has the rare distinction of being a repeated subject in Warhol's work as he created portraits of her two times, three years apart. This red canvas presents a younger Blau in her first Warhol portrait in 1983. <br> <br>Warhol credited Blau as a critical component in his rise to international fame and as a pillar of 20th century art. This 1980s portrait contains all of the hallmarks of Warhol during his last decade, a period in which he found renewed creative impulses and a return to hand painting.
ANDY WARHOL
Portrait of Dorothy Blau-Red
1983
40 x 40 in.
acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas

Andy Warhol, who famously said that, “In the future, everybody will be famous for 15 minutes,” was known for his portraits of influential and powerful celebrities, businesspeople, and socialites. He was obsessed with exploring hallmarks of a consumer society such as wealth and fame. From his renowned Factory studio in New York, Warhol became a pop culture icon, one of the most important artists of the 20th century, and a name synonymous with Pop art. <br> <br>Warhol's notable Death and Disaster series addresses depictions of death in the media, commenting on desensitization through repeated imagery. Often using photos from mass-circulated newspapers, magazines, and tabloids, Warhol took them out of the journalistic context and appropriated them in artwork. “Electric Chairs” (1971), based on an image of the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison, belongs to this series. Warhol first used this subject matter in 1963 and returned to the image for this 1971 set of prints, in which he put more prominence on the chair by cropping the image. Here, Warhol repeats the image ten times in different color combinations. Each screenprint is hand-signed and stamped on the verso.
ANDY WARHOL
Electric Chairs
1971
35 3/8 x 47 7/8 in. ea.
screenprint

ANDY WARHOL - The Shadow (from Myths) - color screenprint with diamond dust on paper - 37 1/2 x 37 1/2 in.
ANDY WARHOL
The Shadow (from Myths)
1981
37 1/2 x 37 1/2 in.
color screenprint with diamond dust on paper

ANDY WARHOL - Vote McGovern - screenprint - 42 x 42 in.
ANDY WARHOL
Vote McGovern
1972
42 x 42 in.
screenprint

Warhol began depicting the "Hammer and Sickle" in 1976 after seeing the symbol from the Soviet flag used in graffiti while visiting Italy. The icon represents the union of industrial and farm workers’ interests. To Warhol, the symbol was more Pop than politics. One of his assistants scoured books for reproductions and ultimately purchased a double-headed hammer and a sickle and arranged them in different positions to photograph. Warhol used the images for his series of silkscreens, which New York’s Castelli Gallery exhibited in 1977. His almost expressionist use of the hammer and sickle diffuses some of the Cold War tension that prevailed from the early 1940s through the 1980s.
ANDY WARHOL
Hammer & Sickle
1977
image: 30 x 40 1/8 in. board: 32 1/2 x 42 1/2 in.
screenprint

ANDY WARHOL - After the Party - screenprint - 21 1/2 x 30 1/2 in.
ANDY WARHOL
After the Party
1979
21 1/2 x 30 1/2 in.
screenprint

ANDY WARHOL - I Dream of Genie with the Light Brown Shoes - offset lithograph with watercolor - 9 3/4 x 13 3/4 in.
ANDY WARHOL
I Dream of Genie with the Light Brown Shoes
9 3/4 x 13 3/4 in.
offset lithograph with watercolor