Andy Warhol - Contemporary Art Part I New York Thursday, May 15, 2008 | Phillips

Create your first list.

Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.

  • Provenance


    The Estate of Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, New York

  • Exhibited


    New York, Museum of Modern Art, February 6 - May 4, 1989; Art Institute of Chicago, June 3 - August 13, 1989; London, Hayward Gallery, September 7 - November 5, 1989; Cologne, Museum Ludwig; Venice, Palazzo Grassi, February 25 - May 27, 1990; and Paris, Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, June 21 - September 10, 1990, Andy Warhol: A Retrospective

  • Literature


    K. McShine, Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, eds., Andy Warhol: Rétrospective, Paris, 1990, pl. 397, p. 365 (illustrated)

  • Catalogue Essay


    The Guns and Knives paintings from 1981-1982 are stark reminders of the violent society we lived in then and now. Having nearly been killed by a handgun Andy was able to make paintings of guns as iconic objects. In order to choose which guns he would use we made calls to friends who might know someone with a gun. A few scary people, with first names only, came by and let Andy take Polaroid’s of their weapons. I remember him photographing a sawn-off shotgun. Finally after looking at the different Polaroids, he decided to use high-contrast reproductions of certain handguns, like a Sport King (long rifle) and a HI-Standard .22 Cal (snub-nosed gun) from sporting magazines. The same type of process was used to select the knives. At the beginning Andy wanted to photograph exotic knives and daggers. We knew that Chris Stein from Blondie collected handmade knives and unusual daggers. Chris brought some to the studio for Andy to photograph. But after reviewing the pictures, Andy asked Jay Shriver, his new art assistant, to buy some ordinary kitchen knives from a Bowery restaurant-supply store. Jay came back with some Galaxy 8-inch slicers and, of course, a receipt. Andy photographed the ordinary knives in various formations and they were chosen. How many times does one read about someone picking up a kitchen knife and plunging it into his wife or her husband in a moment of jealous rage? And death by a handgun is a daily reality.
    V. Fremont, Cast a Cold Eye: The Late Work of Andy Warhol, New York, 2006, p.157

  • 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

115

Gun

1981-82

Synthetic polymer and silkscreen ink on canvas.

16 x 20 in. (40.6 x 50.8 cm).

Stamped with the Estate and Foundation seals and numbered “PA 15.002” on the overlap.

Estimate
$400,000 - 600,000 

Contemporary Art Part I

15 May 2008, 7pm
New York