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This item WAS NOT SOLD. Auction date was 2002 May 13 @ 16:00UTC-8 : PST/AKDT
ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987) SELF-PORTRAIT stamped with the Estate and Foundation seals on the reverse silkscreen ink and acrylic on linen 108 x 108 in. (274.3 x 274.3 cm) executed in 1986 Estimate: - $3,000,000-4,000,000 PROVENANCE The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, NEW YORK (No. PA40.080) Anthony d'Offay Gallery, LONDON Fondation Beyeler, basel EXHIBITED BASEL, Fondation Beyeler, ANDY WARHOL: SERIES AND SINGLES, September 17-December 31, 2000, p. 193, no. 106 (illustrated) In 1986, and only a year before his untimely death at the age of 58, Andy Warhol created his final series of self-portraits. As the present work demonstrates, Warhol silkscreened photographs of himself onto large, square canvases, floating brightly colored images of his own head on fields of utter blackness. The apparent simplicity of these paintings, combined with the impassive expression on the artist's face, seems to perpetuate the mysterious, tight-lipped, artistic persona that Warhol cultivated throughout his career. "If you want to know all about Andy Warhol," he once explained, "just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it." (Quoted in G. Berg, "Nothing to Lose: An Interview with Andy Warhol," Cahiers du Cinema in English, no. 10, 1967, p. 56.) Despite such evasions, the present work is ultimately quite revelatory, offering poignant insight into the artist's self-appraisal at the end of his life. Most notably, the present work gives eerily prescient expression to Warhol's own mortality. Although the artist produced various self-portraits throughout his career, he usually pictured himself hiding behind shadows, sunglasses or the cosmetics of drag. In his final self-portraits, however, Warhol stares directly at his audience. This unblinking expression is uncommonly candid, and confronts the viewer with the artist's aging appearance. As David Bourdon has observed, "These large paintings, more than six feet square, are startling, rather horrific close-ups of the artist's starkly isolated face.... Warhol's visage by this time was, of course, almost totally invented: the hair belonged to one of dozens of wigs, the skin had been dermatologically transformed and constantly tautened through the use of astringents, and the sunken cheeks had been smoothed out with collagen injections (contrary to rumors, Warhol never had a facelift; his fear of the surgeon's scalpel made him forego that treatment). Despite the artificiality of his appearance, the face was still reconcilable with that of the clear-eyed teenager who had drawn an earnest self-portrait in his high school art class. The forty-odd years between that early pencil drawing and the last self-portraits had certainly heightened his awareness of human vanity and prepared him to contemplate his own mortality. Though he did his best to suppress morbid thoughts, references to death and disaster continued to slide into his art." (D. Bourdon, Warhol, New York, 1989, p. 402.) In addition to his timeworn facial features, other aspects of Warhol's final self-portraits make oblique reference to death. Unlike most of Warhol's portraiture, where the neck and shoulders of his sitters are clearly visible, the present work obliterates any sense of the artist's torso. When rendered in the graphic tones of a silkscreen, his free-floating face seems thin and insubstantial. This apparitional appearance is only enhanced by Warhol's flyaway wig. Cropped at the top of the canvas, the uppermost strands seem to dangle the head from above, and lend this image a ghastly, noose-like suspension. Despite these morbid undertones, the present work may also be read as a celebration of artistic genius. The same wig that suspends Warhol's head also explodes in every direction, and the shocks of hair dissolve into strokes and splatters of pure pigment. These expressive tendrils of paint provide a compelling counterpoint to the rectitude of Warhol's facial expression. In the final analysis, they seem to symbolize the boundless creative energies that flowed from Warhol's mind, even in the months just prior to his passing.
Auction Location:
United States
Previewing Details:
Viewing in Chelsea Saturday May 4, 2002 - Sun
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