Andy Warhol - Evening & Day Editions New York Friday, October 25, 2019 | Phillips

Create your first list.

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

  • Provenance

    Acquired directly from Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, 1964
    By descent to present owner, 2005

  • Literature

    Frayda Feldman and Jörg Schellmann 7

  • Catalogue Essay

    Known as an artist of the fabulous and the famous, Warhol created a vast oeuvre of prints unified by his use of repetition and exploitation of the multiple. Warhol came to screenprinting in the early 1960’s, interested by the photomechanical processes of the medium. “I’m for mechanical art," said Warhol. "When I took up silk screening, it was to more fully exploit the preconceived image through the commercial techniques of multiple reproduction.”

    In many ways Pop Art was the language of prints and multiples. It was a language of movie stills, consumer goods, cartoons, and closeups. Warhol made prints out of this very context, from his vibrant and lyrical Flowers (lot 60), sourced from a photograph of hibiscus blooms, to his Soup Cans (lot 66), and images of Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe (lots 59 and 68). All would come to proliferate society, to be consumed by the masses.

    Warhol’s Electric Chair series (lot 67), are from an extensive Death and Disaster series in which Warhol investigated his theory of seriality and the multiple. “When you see a gruesome picture over and over again,” Warhol said, “it doesn’t really have any effect.” One of Warhol’s last series, Cowboys and Indians, lot 70, features popular western icons from Annie Oakley to John Wayne, as well as important Native American figures; a frowning Geronimo (lot 71). This series, while playful, was as Warhol wanted for “grown-ups” a Warholian take on a beloved West, and all its twentieth-century allure.


    In 1964, Elizabeth Taylor was the perfect interplay of glamour and tragedy. At the height of her career and hospitalized for pneumonia, Warhol created this portrait from a blown-up publicity still of the actress. “I started those [pictures of Elizabeth Taylor] a long time ago, when she was so sick and everyone said she was going to die,” said Warhol. “Now I’m doing them all over, putting bright colors on her lips and eyes.”

    “Ohhhh, Elizabeth Taylor, ohhhh. She’s so glamorous.” - Andy Warhol Interviewed by John Giorno, 1963

  • 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

59

Liz

1964
Offset lithograph in colors, on wove paper, with full margins.
I. 22 x 22 in. (55.9 x 55.9 cm)
S. 23 1/8 x 23 1/8 in. (58.7 x 58.7 cm)

Signed and dated in black ball-point pen (from the edition of approximately 300), published by Leo Castelli, New York, framed.

Estimate
$60,000 - 90,000 

Sold for $81,250

Contact Specialist
Kelly Troester
Worldwide Co-Head of Editions, Modern
+1 212 940 1221
ktroester@phillips.com

Cary Leibowitz
Worldwide Co-Head of Editions, Contemporary
+1 212 940 1222
cleibowitz@phillips.com

General Inquiries
+1 212 940 1220

Evening & Day Editions

New York Auction 25 October 2019