Anne and Paul Warhola with Two Marilyns. Image © Abby Warhola
By James Warhola
1962 was the important breakout year for Andy Warhol's legacy as an artist. It was during this year that Warhol's iconic artworks of Soup Cans, Dollar Bills, Coke Bottles and Marilyns went flying into the world to gain him the notoriety that launched him into art history fame.
As nephews, my brother George and I had the unique experience of assisting our uncle during this time at his home studio at 89th and Lexington Avenue. We started out helping him with simple chores around the studio like cleaning up and moving things from one room to another, but ultimately found ourselves stretching canvases both large and small. Many of the artworks that we worked on ultimately found their way into major museums and collections around the world.
In August '62 I started doings silkscreens...It was all so simple—quick and chancy. I was thrilled with it.
— Andy Warhol
Film Still from Lane Slate, Exhibition, 1963. Image The Archives of the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, Artwork © 2018 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
In late summer 1962, shortly after Marilyn Monroe's death, our uncle started his Marilyn series. He had two different size screens made of her face with which he experimented with various combinations of bright colors. The smaller Marilyn portrait size was generally used for multiples of different amounts. The slightly larger Marilyn portraits became single paintings of varying colors which he would later call Flavors.
Andy Warhol Two Marilyns, 1962. This work will be offered in our New York Evening Sale of 20th Century & Contemporary Art on 17 May 2018.
Neil Printz, the Warhol Foundation's co-editor of the first catalogue raisonné who examined Double Marilyn in 1995, commented to me, "If only these Marilyns could be in the same room they could speak to each other." Since my brother and I were there when our uncle screened the Marilyns we can attest to that fact — yes, the Marilyns could speak to each other. They were all together at one time on the same canvas. He screened them one after another on a large linen canvas rolled out on his parquet floor. A first screening was for position — ghostly black and white images that were a guide for laying in her luscious bright colors of yellow, pink and red, contrasted with a background in turquoise. He then squeegeed Marilyn's face again, at which moment to us she came alive to the glamorous image we would all know her as. The canvas was finished and cut as needed for his final works — foursomes, threesomes, doubles and a number of singles.
One that stood out was a double Marilyn of which our uncle decided to repaint a mask of pink on the left-side portrait. It was in stark contrast to the Marilyn on the right which made it all the more unique and mysterious. Double Marilyn was gifted to my father, Paul, Andy's oldest brother, when he commented that he liked it because it was "different from the rest."
This is an abridged and edited version of an essay by James Warhola from August 30, 2017. Read here to learn more about 'Two Marilyns'.