Andy Warhol - Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Saturday, June 28, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London; Timothy Taylor gallery, London

  • Exhibited

    Edingburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Andy Warhol Self-Portraits, 12 February – 2 May, 2005

  • Catalogue Essay

    Snipping and snapping photographs of friends and celebrities throughout his career, Warhol's own image never seemed to go unnoticed! From his 1960s' colourful silkscreens of Marilyn Monroe and blue paintings of Jacqueline Kennedy, to the 1970s' portraits of rock-star Mick Jagger and fellow artist Roy Lichtenstein, Warhol never forget to artistically transform his own image into a work of art. Frontal, profile or deliberate pose, Warhol's visage has become his most famous attribute, elevating him from ‘factory artist' to celebrity, where his status and that of his subject matter have become increasingly equal in our minds, diminishing the boundaries between those portrayed and Warhol himself.
    His own image has become one of discussion and analysis, often begging the question if all self-portraits are inevitably staged and executed accordingly. In this early Self Portrait of 1967, Warhol has continued with the depiction of himself, having began exploring his own image in the early 60s. Coinciding with the photo-booth type headshots Warhol was working with at the time, this painting differs from his earlier over-confident, front-posing self portraits, infusing Warhol's depiction with a unique and somewhat innocent appearance. Moving away from his slightly ‘haughty' self-portrait of 1964 and his pensive gaze of 1966/67, this Self-Portrait, although executed in the same year as the previous one, is one of unawareness and naturalness, perhaps even the most ‘ordinary' out of the many self-portraits executed during his life. With his head slightly turned to the side and his eyes directed away from the lens of the camera, Warhol has recorded himself uncalculated and natural, visually capturing the essence of a ‘snapshot' – the ‘caught out of the blue' image that served as artistic fodder and serial template for this seminal series of colourful self-portraits.

  • Artist Biography

    Andy Warhol

    American • 1928 - 1987

    Andy Warhol was the leading exponent of the Pop Art movement in the U.S. in the 1960s. Following an early career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol achieved fame with his revolutionary series of silkscreened prints and paintings of familiar objects, such as Campbell's soup tins, and celebrities, such as Marilyn Monroe. Obsessed with popular culture, celebrity and advertising, Warhol created his slick, seemingly mass-produced images of everyday subject matter from his famed Factory studio in New York City. His use of mechanical methods of reproduction, notably the commercial technique of silk screening, wholly revolutionized art-making.

    Working as an artist, but also director and producer, Warhol produced a number of avant-garde films in addition to managing the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground and founding Interview magazine. A central figure in the New York art scene until his untimely death in 1987, Warhol was notably also a mentor to such artists as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

     

    View More Works

278

Self Portrait

1979
Synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink on canvas.
25.4 x 25.4 cm. (10 x 10 in).
Signed and dated ‘Andy Warhol 79' on the overlap and stamped with the Authentication Board Seal and numbered ‘A113.062' on the overlap.

Estimate
£200,000 - 300,000 

Sold for £181,250

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

29 June 2008, 5pm
London