Andy Warhol - Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session New York Wednesday, May 15, 2024 | Phillips

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  • “With Warhol’s gallery of contemporary faces, the decade of 1970s high society is instantly captured. In his glittering realm, light and shadow are bleached out by the high wattage of spotlights; colors seem selected from the science-fiction rainbow invented by the likes of Baskin-Robbins.”
    —Robert Rosenblum
    Executed in 1972, Andy Warhol's Karen Lerner is a vibrant and colorful representation of the female journalist who was one of the first women reporters at Life, Time and Newsweek magazines.i In a total of only 14 canvases, Warhol skillfully captured the multi-faceted personality of Lerner through varied facial expressions rendered in vibrant shades ranging from warm oranges to cool purples. The present work is one of only eight Lerner canvases exhibited in the groundbreaking 1972 show Johns, Stella, Warhol: Works in Series at the Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi. 

     

    Andy Warhol, Karen Lerner, 1972. Image/Artwork: © 2024 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 

    The depiction of royalty, the elite, and the wealthy in the form of portraiture has always played a significant part in art history. Contributing to this legacy, Warhol “succeeded virtually single-handed[ly]…in resurrecting from near extinction that endangered species of grand-style portraiture of people important, glamorous, or notorious enough – whether statesmen, actresses, or wealthy patrons of the arts – to deserve to leave their human traces in the history of painting.”ii Indeed, the present portrait of Karen Lerner is an intimate example of how the artist was able to capture his sitters with his Polaroid camera and transform images into vibrant and electrifying representations of their personalities through his silkscreen printing method.

     

    i “Karen G. Lerner”, Valley News, 3 May 2019, online.

    ii Robert Rosenblum, “Andy Warhol: Court Painter to the 70s” in Andy Warhol: Portraits of the 70s, David Whitney, ed., New York, 1979, p. 9.

    • Condition Report

    • Description

      View our Conditions of Sale.

    • Provenance

      The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., New York
      Jane Holzer
      Gagosian Gallery, New York
      Private Collection
      Acquired from the above by the present owner

    • Exhibited

      Corpus Christi, Art Museum of South Texas, Johns, Stella, Warhol: Works in a Series, October 4–November 26, 1972, pp. 29, 32, 46 (illustrated, p. 32; erroneously dated 1971)

    • Literature

      Georg Frei and Neil Printz, eds., The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings and Sculptures, 1970-1974, vol. 3, New York, 2010, no. 2199, pp. 115, 117 (illustrated, p. 115)

    • 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.

       

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203

Karen Lerner

stamped by the Estate of Andy Warhol and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., New York and numbered "PO50.601" on the overlap
silkscreen ink on linen
30 x 27 7/8 in. (76.2 x 70.8 cm)
Executed in 1972.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$70,000 - 100,000 

Place Advance Bid
Contact Specialist

Annie Dolan
NY Head of Auctions and Specialist, Head of Sale, Morning Session
212 940 1288
adolan@phillips.com

Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session

New York Auction 15 May 2024