Andy Warhol - Contemporary Art Part II New York Tuesday, November 9, 2010 | Phillips

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  • Provenance


    Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Zürich

  • Catalogue Essay


    It would be very glamorous to be reincarnated as a great big ring on Liz Taylor’s finger. Andy Warhol
    The present lot was as a gift from Andy Warhol to former Miss America and First Lady of Kentucky Phyllis George Brown in 1982. Warhol presented her with this work to thank Brown for inviting him to attend the Kentucky Derby and a subsequent garden party as her honored guest. The choice of the diamond as the subject matter for Warhol’s gift is surely an allusion to Brown’s high social status, and also to her reputation as a woman of great beauty and elegance. In this piece, Andy Warhol synthesizes his fascinations with commercialism, glamour, and celebrity into a single image. Here he creates a portrait of a diamond in the graphic style he also uses to render his human subjects, placing both people and objects on the same plane of commodification.

  • 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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260

Gem

1979

Synthetic polymer paint, diamond dust and silkscreen ink on canvas.

14 x 18 in. (35.6 x 45.7 cm).

Stamped by The Estate of Andy Warhol and the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board, Inc. on the reverse.

Estimate
$200,000 - 300,000 

Contemporary Art Part II

9 November 2010
New York