Andy Warhol Apple (From Ads set A) 1985 synthetic polymer and silkscreen inks on canvas 22 x 22 in. (55.9 x 55.9 cm) Signed and dated “Andy Warhol 85” along the overlap.
Provenance Ronald Feldman Fine Arts Inc., New York DJT Fine Arts, Palm Beach Private Collection Catalogue Essay To think different is the first step in achieving the status of an American genius. This drive to break with tradition, to transcend common practice, has always been the hallmark of American ingenuity and greatness in realms as disparate as technology and visual art. Yet, toward the end of the Twentieth Century, technology began to take its aesthetics more seriously, just as the radical Pop Artists began to employ technology to their benefit. In doing so, these two liberal sciences entered into a codependence that grows stronger to this very day. And as Andy Warhol chose his subjects with an eye discerning in its sensitivity to power, influence, and beauty, so Steve Jobs crafted the image of his burgeoning technological revolution with a keen sense of its public appeal. In Warhol’s Apple (From Ads set A), 1985, Warhol pays homage to the growing iconicity of Apple, Inc. by inviting its logo to enter his pantheon of silkscreen idols. Founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple chose as its first logo a hand-drawn sketch of Isaac Newton sitting under a tree, unaware of the epiphany-inducing fruit dangling mere feet above his head. This dichromatic picture was heavy on detail, yet it lacked the simplicity necessary for an image to become widely replicable and iconic. At Jobs’ direction, Apple replaced the logo the same year, opting insteadfor a design by graphic artist Rob Janoff: an upright apple with a chunk bitten out by its hungry owner. Though presented to him in black-and-white, Jobs chose a populist route, encouraging Janoff to colorize the logo for greater public appeal. Thus, the rainbow apple was born, and it persisted as Apple’s extraordinary public image until 1998, when Apple’s new revolution of design simplicity brought forth the monochrome design that graces Apple’s products to this day. As Apple was refining its visual brand, Andy Warhol was expanding his; Warhol’s work in the late 1970s drew upon new subject matter and methods of production, including his oxidation paintings, his first work with camouflage, and the nightmarish integration of weaponry, guns, and knives into his work. Yet as the 1970s turned into the 1980s, he maintained his affinity for the subject matter of modern iconography. “Warhol was marvelously intuitive in this kind of project by drawing his images from the vernacular, by using ready-made images.” (A. Danto, “Warhol and the Politics of Prints”, Andy Warhol Prints, Edited by F. Feldman and C. Defendi, New York, 2003, p. 15). As he curated the visual components of his Ads series, one logo in particular had risen to the top of recognition by the American public. The year 1984 saw the arrival of Apple’s Macintosh, the first low-cost computer ever to be released to the public. In doing so, Apple’s value exploded, and the company’s mass appeal grew from a small elite sector to a large portion of Americans. The Macintosh computer, with its advanced graphic and printing capabilities, set a new standard for American—and global—technology. Soon recognized by the majority of America due to its infamous commercial parodying George Orwell’s imagined dystopia of the same year, the significance of the Macintosh computer was now due in part to the fact that it was such an enormously famous product. Warhol’s inclusion of the new Apple Macintosh Rainbow logo in his Ads series is a testament to an ingenious marketing campaign, one that took a consumer product and launched it into the pop ranks of Campbell’s Soup and Marilyn Monroe While most of Warhol’s visual source material was traced then subjected to serigraphy (his preferred method of painting: silkscreening), Apple (From Ads set A), 1985, bears a unique aspect of design—a picture of Warhol’s making. Across the top portion of the picture, “Apple” appears in a bold, glowing, uppercase font, almost as the dominating sha
Andy Warhol Apple (From Ads set A) 1985 synthetic polymer and silkscreen inks on canvas 22 x 22 in. (55.9 x 55.9 cm) Signed and dated “Andy Warhol 85” along the overlap.
Provenance Ronald Feldman Fine Arts Inc., New York DJT Fine Arts, Palm Beach Private Collection Catalogue Essay To think different is the first step in achieving the status of an American genius. This drive to break with tradition, to transcend common practice, has always been the hallmark of American ingenuity and greatness in realms as disparate as technology and visual art. Yet, toward the end of the Twentieth Century, technology began to take its aesthetics more seriously, just as the radical Pop Artists began to employ technology to their benefit. In doing so, these two liberal sciences entered into a codependence that grows stronger to this very day. And as Andy Warhol chose his subjects with an eye discerning in its sensitivity to power, influence, and beauty, so Steve Jobs crafted the image of his burgeoning technological revolution with a keen sense of its public appeal. In Warhol’s Apple (From Ads set A), 1985, Warhol pays homage to the growing iconicity of Apple, Inc. by inviting its logo to enter his pantheon of silkscreen idols. Founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple chose as its first logo a hand-drawn sketch of Isaac Newton sitting under a tree, unaware of the epiphany-inducing fruit dangling mere feet above his head. This dichromatic picture was heavy on detail, yet it lacked the simplicity necessary for an image to become widely replicable and iconic. At Jobs’ direction, Apple replaced the logo the same year, opting insteadfor a design by graphic artist Rob Janoff: an upright apple with a chunk bitten out by its hungry owner. Though presented to him in black-and-white, Jobs chose a populist route, encouraging Janoff to colorize the logo for greater public appeal. Thus, the rainbow apple was born, and it persisted as Apple’s extraordinary public image until 1998, when Apple’s new revolution of design simplicity brought forth the monochrome design that graces Apple’s products to this day. As Apple was refining its visual brand, Andy Warhol was expanding his; Warhol’s work in the late 1970s drew upon new subject matter and methods of production, including his oxidation paintings, his first work with camouflage, and the nightmarish integration of weaponry, guns, and knives into his work. Yet as the 1970s turned into the 1980s, he maintained his affinity for the subject matter of modern iconography. “Warhol was marvelously intuitive in this kind of project by drawing his images from the vernacular, by using ready-made images.” (A. Danto, “Warhol and the Politics of Prints”, Andy Warhol Prints, Edited by F. Feldman and C. Defendi, New York, 2003, p. 15). As he curated the visual components of his Ads series, one logo in particular had risen to the top of recognition by the American public. The year 1984 saw the arrival of Apple’s Macintosh, the first low-cost computer ever to be released to the public. In doing so, Apple’s value exploded, and the company’s mass appeal grew from a small elite sector to a large portion of Americans. The Macintosh computer, with its advanced graphic and printing capabilities, set a new standard for American—and global—technology. Soon recognized by the majority of America due to its infamous commercial parodying George Orwell’s imagined dystopia of the same year, the significance of the Macintosh computer was now due in part to the fact that it was such an enormously famous product. Warhol’s inclusion of the new Apple Macintosh Rainbow logo in his Ads series is a testament to an ingenious marketing campaign, one that took a consumer product and launched it into the pop ranks of Campbell’s Soup and Marilyn Monroe While most of Warhol’s visual source material was traced then subjected to serigraphy (his preferred method of painting: silkscreening), Apple (From Ads set A), 1985, bears a unique aspect of design—a picture of Warhol’s making. Across the top portion of the picture, “Apple” appears in a bold, glowing, uppercase font, almost as the dominating sha
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
