Andy Warhol - Evening & Day Editions London Wednesday, January 17, 2024 | Phillips

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  • “We were thinking of important Renaissance paintings or details of such.... Ultimately, we suggested four subjects to Andy. He looked at them and without listening to our wordy explanations simply asked 'can't you find more famous paintings?'”
    —Jörg Schellmann
    From the early 1980s, Andy Warhol turned his attention away from portraying the celebrities of his contemporary society. Instead, he began to focus on celebrities of history - iconic figures and motifs of the past. Despite this shift from popular culture to historical imagery, Warhol nonetheless continued to focus his practice on one central theme: fame.  

     

    In 1983, the renowned German publisher Jörg Schellmann, together with his business partner Bernd Klüser, suggested to Warhol that he make a portfolio of prints based on Renaissance masterworks. After carefully considering which paintings would be most fitting, Schellmann and Klüser settled on Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (c. 1485), Leonardo da Vinci’s The Annunciation (1472), Paolo Uccello’s St. George and the Dragon (1472), and Piero della Francesca’s Madonna del Duca da Montedeltro (c.1474). Despite being created five centuries prior, these paintings were pertinent subjects for Warhol due to their status as revered icons of art history. Warhol’s enduring fascination with mass reproduction, iconic imagery, and the allure of celebrity reverberated powerfully within these masterpieces. In transforming them into twentieth-century icons, Warhol amplified their historical significance as they took centre stage in his own Pop renaissance. 

     

    Leonardo da Vinci, The Annunication, 1472-1475, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Image: Photo Scala, Florence

    Leonardo da Vinci's The Annunciation is a masterpiece of Renaissance art created between 1472 and 1475. This iconic painting depicts the angel Gabriel's announcement to the Virgin Mary that she will conceive the Son of God, a pivotal moment in Christian theology known as the Annunciation. Leonardo skilfully captures the emotional intensity of the scene through the use of delicate brushstrokes and a subtle play of light and shadow. The angel and Mary are portrayed with grace and elegance, and the meticulous architectural details in the background add a sense of depth to the composition. Poignantly, Warhol closely cropped da Vinci's painting, in a manner similar to how he cropped the original photograph used  for his Marilyn Monroe portraits, accentuating the starlet’s striking facial features. By zooming in on the space between Gabriel and the Virgin's hands, Warhol not only firmly reinvented the composition as a Pop masterpiece, but also elucidated the icon-status and cultural prestige of this painting, which is recognisable even from just a small detail.

      

    Jörg Schellmann and Andy Warhol, Warhol Studio at Broadway/Union Square, New York, 1983.  Image: © Schellmann Art

    Warhol made use of his favourite technique, the screenprint, to render the historic Renaissance paintings in bold plains of vibrant colours, overlaid with his signature misaligned outline. Notably, unlike most of Warhol’s screenprints, in Details of Renaissance Painting the margins were not trimmed and instead left as wide plains of exposed paper. This was due to a joint decision between the artist and publishers that the borders were in keeping with the historical imagery, representing a classical passe-poute. A trial proof, the present lot is a unique work that embodies Warhol’s central concerns in his later years - fame, reproduction, icons, and the canon of art history.

    “After a few weeks we received a call from New York: the first proofs were done. How exciting! The rules were that the publisher could choose from the total proofs produced. That was not an easy task as there were so many beautiful and interesting images.”
    —Jörg Schellmann 

    • Provenance

      Personal copy of the publisher and part of the Archive of Edition Schellmann since time of publication

    • Literature

      see Frayda Feldman and Jörg Schellmann 320-323
      Jörg Schellmann, ed., Forty Are Better Than One, Munich/New York, 2009, pp. 346-347
      Jörg Schellmann, ed., Andy Warhol Unique, Munich/New York, 2014, p. 118

    • 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

Works from the Archive of Edition Schellmann to benefit the Ars Publicata Project

16

Details of Renaissance Paintings (Leonardo da Vinci, The Annunciation, 1472) (see F. & S. 320-323)

1984
Unique screenprint in colours, on Arches Aquarelle paper, with full margins.
I. 65.5 x 95.6 cm (25 3/4 x 37 5/8 in.)
S. 81.4 x 112 cm (32 x 44 1/8 in.)

Signed and numbered 'TP 22/36' in pencil (a unique colour variant trial proof, the edition was 60 and 15 artist's proofs), published by Edition Schellmann & Klüser, Munich and New York (with their inkstamp on the reverse), unframed.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
£25,000 - 35,000 

Sold for £53,340

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Evening & Day Editions

London Auction 17 - 18 January 2024