24 PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE NEW YORK COLLECTION Andy Warhol Jackie 1964 acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen 20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.6 cm) Stamped with the Estate of Andy Warhol and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and numbered "PA 56.117" on the overlap.
Provenance The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., New York Blains Fine Art, London L & M Arts, New York Literature G. Frei and N. Printz, eds., The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings and Sculptures, 1964-1969, vol. 2A, New York, 2004, pp. 158 and 161, no. 1013 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay During the 1960s, I think, people forgot what emotions were supposed to be. And I don’t think they’ve ever remembered. I think that once you see emotions from a certain angle you can never think of them as real again. ANDY WARHOL (G. Celant. SuperWarhol, Milan, 2003, p. 45) Jackie, 1964 is a defining example of Andy Warhol’s early silkscreen work. Prior to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Warhol had concentrated his efforts on producing silkscreens of two other celebrity icons: Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. He commenced this particular portraits during moments of crisis—Marilyn Monroe’s silkscreens appeared shortly after her death, and Taylor’s life-threatening battle with pneumonia inspired her own silkscreens. But the with the media frenzy that surrounded Kennedy’s murder and the subsequent canonization of Jacqueline Kennedy as the patron saint of tragedy and strength in American culture, Warhol found that the former first lady had been exposed to unprecedented levels of popular exposure. In Jackie, 1964, we see Warhol arriving at a culmination of his early silkscreen portraits. And, as opposed to Warhol’s professed indifference to the Kennedy assassination, the present lot shows his techniques of mechanical and multiple reproduction responding meaningfully to a seminal event in the history of American media. The genesis of Warhol’s Jackies, including the present lot, is the published print photographs of Jacqueline Kennedy in the aftermath of the assassination. Warhol chose eight particular images to silkscreen; some depict the first lady before the event, and some during the swearing in of Lyndon B. Johnson and the funeral. Jackie, 1964 shows the first lady arriving at Dallas/Ft. Worth airport shortly before tragedy struck. Kennedy’s smile dazzles nearly as brightly as the sunshine, which, through its shadows, obscures the intricacies of her impeccable features. Though it appears that Jackie greets the camera directly, the actual image shows her eyes veiled as she blinks during the photograph. Though Warhol leaves us with the unmistakable mask of the first lady, his silkscreen engenders a haunting visage, one that strikes us with a clear harbinger of impending catastrophe. Warhol delivers his rendering in a striking and attractive hue of cerulean blue, brighter than most of his Jackies, which usually bear a darker blue or deep violet tone. When reflecting upon the origins of Jackie, 1964’s source material, one is reminded of Jackie Kennedy’s perpetually image-bound existence, one which Warhol capitalized on. The nature of the image’s origin reminds one of the implications of a celebrity life; to cease to exist in a mere social context was “the starting point of another life: a media existence, where individual identity was no longer independent and subjective, but rather became everyone’s experience, however simulated. Here the sacrifice became theatre, staging the drama of loss as a spectacle at one collective and personal”(G. Celant. SuperWarhol, Milan, 2003, p. 7). As Jackie’s identity was everyone’s experience, so were her feelings of loss and sadness. Warhol zeroes in on this image as a reminder of our collective loss. Much in the way that flashbulb memories stick painfully in our minds as inescapable souvenirs of major tragedies, Warhol’s obsession with Jacqueline Kennedy is a study in repetition. His image derives its power from our own habits of recollection: while we may remember the entire chronology of a traumatic event, it is the force of the static image with which we immediately identify the event in our post-tragedy lives. While most of Warhol’s various Jackie images depict the events im
24 PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE NEW YORK COLLECTION Andy Warhol Jackie 1964 acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen 20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.6 cm) Stamped with the Estate of Andy Warhol and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and numbered "PA 56.117" on the overlap.
Provenance The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., New York Blains Fine Art, London L & M Arts, New York Literature G. Frei and N. Printz, eds., The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings and Sculptures, 1964-1969, vol. 2A, New York, 2004, pp. 158 and 161, no. 1013 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay During the 1960s, I think, people forgot what emotions were supposed to be. And I don’t think they’ve ever remembered. I think that once you see emotions from a certain angle you can never think of them as real again. ANDY WARHOL (G. Celant. SuperWarhol, Milan, 2003, p. 45) Jackie, 1964 is a defining example of Andy Warhol’s early silkscreen work. Prior to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Warhol had concentrated his efforts on producing silkscreens of two other celebrity icons: Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. He commenced this particular portraits during moments of crisis—Marilyn Monroe’s silkscreens appeared shortly after her death, and Taylor’s life-threatening battle with pneumonia inspired her own silkscreens. But the with the media frenzy that surrounded Kennedy’s murder and the subsequent canonization of Jacqueline Kennedy as the patron saint of tragedy and strength in American culture, Warhol found that the former first lady had been exposed to unprecedented levels of popular exposure. In Jackie, 1964, we see Warhol arriving at a culmination of his early silkscreen portraits. And, as opposed to Warhol’s professed indifference to the Kennedy assassination, the present lot shows his techniques of mechanical and multiple reproduction responding meaningfully to a seminal event in the history of American media. The genesis of Warhol’s Jackies, including the present lot, is the published print photographs of Jacqueline Kennedy in the aftermath of the assassination. Warhol chose eight particular images to silkscreen; some depict the first lady before the event, and some during the swearing in of Lyndon B. Johnson and the funeral. Jackie, 1964 shows the first lady arriving at Dallas/Ft. Worth airport shortly before tragedy struck. Kennedy’s smile dazzles nearly as brightly as the sunshine, which, through its shadows, obscures the intricacies of her impeccable features. Though it appears that Jackie greets the camera directly, the actual image shows her eyes veiled as she blinks during the photograph. Though Warhol leaves us with the unmistakable mask of the first lady, his silkscreen engenders a haunting visage, one that strikes us with a clear harbinger of impending catastrophe. Warhol delivers his rendering in a striking and attractive hue of cerulean blue, brighter than most of his Jackies, which usually bear a darker blue or deep violet tone. When reflecting upon the origins of Jackie, 1964’s source material, one is reminded of Jackie Kennedy’s perpetually image-bound existence, one which Warhol capitalized on. The nature of the image’s origin reminds one of the implications of a celebrity life; to cease to exist in a mere social context was “the starting point of another life: a media existence, where individual identity was no longer independent and subjective, but rather became everyone’s experience, however simulated. Here the sacrifice became theatre, staging the drama of loss as a spectacle at one collective and personal”(G. Celant. SuperWarhol, Milan, 2003, p. 7). As Jackie’s identity was everyone’s experience, so were her feelings of loss and sadness. Warhol zeroes in on this image as a reminder of our collective loss. Much in the way that flashbulb memories stick painfully in our minds as inescapable souvenirs of major tragedies, Warhol’s obsession with Jacqueline Kennedy is a study in repetition. His image derives its power from our own habits of recollection: while we may remember the entire chronology of a traumatic event, it is the force of the static image with which we immediately identify the event in our post-tragedy lives. While most of Warhol’s various Jackie images depict the events im
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
