“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 RosenblumExecuted 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.
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.
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)
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.
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.