Andy Warhol - Editions & Works on Paper New York Tuesday, April 16, 2024 | Phillips
  •  “When I got my first television set, I stopped caring so much about having close relationships.”
    —Andy Warhol

    Rendered in a vivacious neon pink, Moonwalk was intended to be part of a larger series titled TV, in which Warhol would interpret other historical moments of American television, including Martin Luther King Jr. delivering his famous “I Have a Dream” speech and the Beatles first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. However, Warhol’s unexpected death resulted in Moonwalk being the only print from the proposed series to be realized, making it a remarkably sought after work of Warhol’s career.

     

    Though TV was to focus on the influence and history of television, Warhol’s source image did not come from a television broadcast. Instead, Warhol amalgamated two photographs taken by Neil Armstrong of his fellow pioneering astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. walking on the moon for the first time in 1969 during the Apollo 11 mission. From one photo, Warhol extracted the American flag planted into the surface of the moon, and from the other, Aldrin standing facing Armstrong’s camera, his photographer and part of the Lunar Module “Eagle” reflected in his visor. In Warhol’s portrayal, these reflections resemble the form of the initials “A.W.” – while Warhol did not get the chance to sign the Moonwalk prints before his passing, he certainly left his mark upon them.

     

    [Left]: Detail from photo AS11-40-5875 from the NASA’s Apollo 11 Image Library. Photograph by Neil Armstrong. Image: NASA
    [Right]: Detail from photo AS11-40-5903 from the NASA’s Apollo 11 Image Library. Photograph by Neil Armstrong. Image: NASA

    The Apollo 11 mission’s victory over the Soviet Union as a part of the Space Race conjures the idea of American exceptionalism, a notion that thrived in the 1960s and was further explored by Warhol in his Cowboys and Indians portfolio, unraveling how this mentality manifests in the country’s romanticized idea of the “Wild West.” The combination of a neon palette and fluorescent outlines utilized in Moonwalk updates the original images of Aldrin – and thus the conception of America’s intrinsic superiority – to reflect the distinct visual culture of the 1980s. In approaching the subject of the moon landing nearly twenty years after the initial feat, Warhol solidifies the timeless appeal of the monumental achievement and the lasting impact of the event on the American psyche.

    • Literature

      Frayda Feldman and Jörg Schellmann 405

    • 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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Property from a Contemporary Family Collection

166

Moonwalk (F. & S. 405)

1987
Screenprint in colors, on Lenox Museum Board, the full sheet.
S. 37 7/8 x 37 7/8 in. (96.2 x 96.2 cm)
With printed signature and numbered 156/160 in pencil (there were also 31 artist's proofs), with the stamped Certificate of Authenticity numbered and signed by Frederick Hughes (executor of the Estate), Rupert Jasen Smith (printer) and Ronald Feldman (publisher) in pencil on the reverse, published by Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Inc., New York, framed.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$120,000 - 180,000 

Sold for $463,550

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Editions & Works on Paper

New York Auction 16 - 17 April