Andy Warhol - Evening & Day Editions London Tuesday, June 14, 2022 | Phillips

Create your first list.

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

  • Heavily associated with its utilitarian and militaristic purpose, camouflage fabric is as widely recognised as it is distinct. Originally used to conceal war-machines in enemy territory, the versatile print has grown to encompass military uniform globally – an identifier for all that is conflict related. As a visual emblem, camouflage is to the military as castles are to Walt Disney, or soup cans are to Andy Warhol.

    'You need to let the little things that would ordinarily bore you suddenly thrill you.' —Andy WarholIt was studio assistant Jay Shriver who experimented with a new painting technique in the late 1980’s, pushing paint through military cloth, who gave Warhol the idea of appropriating the combat related imagery. Warhol was intrigued by the all-over repetitive pattern of camouflage, with its leaf-shaped sprigs and islands, that represented the abstract expressionist paintings of his contemporaries. Using photographs taken of clothing purchased at an army surplus store, Warhol transposed and carefully altered the camouflage designs with a psychedelic palette. Playfully abstracting the patterns, the artist defied the print’s original purpose to disguise, and instead pushed the designs to centre stage with vibrant fluorescent colours. The result was a set of eight screenprints, each with different colours and varying levels of depth, that would form one of the artist’s final projects.

    • Provenance

      Guy Hepner, Los Angeles
      Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2013

    • Literature

      Frayda Feldman and Jörg Schellmann 410

    • 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

Property of an Important Los Angeles Collector

55

Camouflage (F. & S. 410)

1987
Screenprint in colours, on Lenox Museum Board, the full sheet.
S. 96.5 x 96.5 cm (38 x 38 in.)
Signed by Fredrick W. Hughes (Executor of the Estate of Andy Warhol), titled, annotated 'REG.ED' and numbered 30/80 in pencil on the stamped Certificate of Authenticity on the reverse, published by Andy Warhol, New York (with his copyright ink stamp on the reverse), framed.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
£20,000 - 30,000 

Sold for £88,200

Contact Specialist

Rebecca Tooby-Desmond
Specialist, Head of Sale, Editions
T +44 207 318 4079
M +44 7502 417366
rtooby-desmond@phillips.com

Robert Kennan
Head of Editions, Europe
T +44 207 318 4075
M +44 7824 994 784
rkennan@phillips.com

Anne Schneider-Wilson
Senior International Specialist, Editions
T +44 207 318 4042
M +44 7760 864 748
aschneider-wilson@phillips.com   

Evening & Day Editions

London Auction 14-15 June 2022