Andy Warhol - Photographs New York Friday, April 5, 2024 | Phillips

Create your first list.

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

  • In the early 1960s, Holly Solomon sat for a portrait by Andy Warhol marking a seminal collaboration between the collector-turned-gallerist and the Pop Art star. Warhol’s process for creating his large-scale canvases at the time was to start with a photobooth portrait. Warhol and Solomon met at an arcade on 47th Street and Broadway to lay the groundwork for their project. Solomon noted that Warhol was very particular about which booth they used: ‘He did pick precisely the photobooth, and he explained to me that he wanted dark and light to be quite clear.’ Once the ideal booth had been selected, Warhol left Solomon alone to perform for the camera as she saw fit. Solomon had studied with legendary acting teacher Lee Strasberg and she used this training to summon a vast array of expressions, poses, and characters for the mechanically operated camera which took four exposures per strip. The final product, an entire inventory of roles that Solomon inhabited with vigor and creativity, was handed over to Warhol to select the image he would use for the final canvas.

     

    Warhol ultimately produced nine brilliant canvases. In each frame Solomon offers up a different avatar of herself, conveying her movie-star charisma and sharp wit. She said, ‘I wanted to be Brigitte Bardot. I wanted to be Jeanne Moreau, Marilyn Monroe all packed into one,’ and observed that Warhol’s ‘greatest gift was giving people what they thought they wanted.’

     

    Holly Solomon was a seminal figure in the advancement of Post-War art, and her name is inextricably linked to the major artists of her day. Her Greene Street space, designed by Gordon Matta-Clark, was daringly experimental and captured the freewheeling creativity of the day with exhibitions, film showings, performances, and poetry readings. In 1975, the Holly Solomon Gallery opened at 392 West Broadway where Solomon retained her adventurous spirit and willingness to promote and support artists such as Matta-Clark, Sigmar Polke, Mary Heilmann, Nam June Paik, Laurie Anderson, William Wegman, and members of the Pattern and Decoration movement including Robert Kushner. As a collector and a dealer, Solomon demonstrated her unfailing ability to recognize creative talent long before others in the field.

    • Provenance

      Directly from the artist to Holly Solomon
      Collection of Holly Solomon
      Collection of Thomas Solomon

    • Exhibited

      Thomas Solomon Gallery, Los Angeles, Portrait, 16 July - 14 August 2010
      Mixed Greens Gallery, New York, Hooray for Hollywood!, 9 January - 8 February 2014
      Gagosian Gallery, New York, In the Studio, 5 February - 18 April 2015
      Marlborough Gallery, London, Selections of the Collection of Holly Solomon, 1968-1981, 29 May - 29 June 2019
      The Mayor Gallery, London, Repetitions, 2 March - 6 May 2022

    • Literature

      Galassi, In the Studio, p. 53
      Éditions Stemmle, Andy Warhol Photography, pp. 94, 96-99, for variants

    • 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

201

Holly Solomon

Unique gelatin silver, four-frame photobooth strip.
7 3/4 x 1 1/2 in. (19.7 x 3.8 cm)

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$7,000 - 9,000 

Sold for $8,890

Contact Specialist

Sarah Krueger
Head of Department, Photographs
skrueger@phillips.com
 

Vanessa Hallett
Worldwide Head of Photographs and Chairwoman, Americas
vhallett@phillips.com

Photographs

New York Auction 5 April 2024