Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe 1967 portfolio of screenprints on paper, in 10 parts each 91.4 x 91.4 cm (36 x 36 in.) Initialled and stamp numbered on the reverse; further numbered on the reverse A124.086, A130.086-138.086. Published by Factory Additions, New York. This work is comprised of 7 prints numbered 62 and 3 prints numbered 137 from an edition of 250 plus 26 artist proofs. Includes original corrugated portfolio box.
Provenance Galerie Ileana Sonnabend, Paris Collection of Micheline & Claude Renard Christie’s, London, Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, 8 February 2006, lot 46 Private Collection, New York Phillips, New York, Evening Sale, 6 March 2014, lot 12 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner Literature K. McShine (ed.), Andy Warhol A Retrospective, New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1989, . 220 (illustrated) C. Heinrich T Sokolowski, et al., Andy Warhol - Photography, New York: Stemmle Publishers, 1999, p. 55 (illustrated) G. Celant (ed.), Super Warhol, Milan: Skira, 2003, p. 266 (illustrated) F. Feldman and J. Schellmann, Andy Warhol Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné 1962-1967, 4th ed., New York: Distributed Art Publishers Inc. and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc., 2003, cat. no. 11.22-31, pp. 68-69 (illustrated) A. Warhol, G. Mercurio, D. Morera, The Andy Warhol Show, London: Thames & Hudson, 2005, pp. 88-89 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay Eternal and haunting, Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe is an idol of terrifying power. It is an image with which our culture is saturated to the extent that to this day its original impact reverberates, is recapitulated, in continuing affirmation of Warhol’s searing inquest into fame and consumerism. Warhol first created a silkscreen of Monroe in 1962, just weeks after her death at the age of thirty-six. He used a publicity still from her 1953 movie Niagara. The archetypal picture of Monroe in ascension to stardom, this photograph presents a relaxed and sensuous visage: suggestively parted lips, perfect hair, an inviting and smoky gaze. It is a face guilelessly at odds with the brutal and unrelenting serialisation to which Warhol would subject it. One of the earliest Marilyn works was Marilyn Diptych (1962), in which two panels of twenty-five Marilyns are placed side by side; the left group are in vivid colour, while the adjacent panel is monochrome, afflicted by blurring and distortion, outlines and shadows fading as the faces read from left to right. In this gradual attenuation is captured the loss of Marilyn herself, even as a chromatically fortified ‘image’ of the real person remains luridly alive. This is the imagistic power of mass media in action. The work’s designation as Diptych highlights another important aspect of idolatry. A diptych is typically a double screen of religious figures at the altarpiece of a church: as a devout Byzantine Catholic Warhol was brought up to be keenly aware of the rich history of such imagery, the practices of veneration and adoration informing much of his oeuvre. Enshrined in devotional format, Marilyn becomes the central object of image-worship. Both in medium and expression, Warhol seamlessly merges this reliquary fetishisation with his chronicling of mediated modernity. As Heiner Bastian writes, even at this early stage in Warhol’s output ‘the aura of utterly affirmative idolisation already stands as a stereotype of a “consumer-goods style” expression of an American way of life and the mass-media culture of a nation, which, in the early 1960s, were creating dreams and hegemonies (according to wholly technical and material premises), in which goods and messages were beholden to mechanisms of consumerism that applied to both alike. In these works the hyper-icons of Pop turn into icons of demonic emptiness; Warhol’s notion of “beauty” cannot be imagined without tragedy.’ (Heiner Bastian, ‘Rituals of Unfulfillable Individuality – The Whereabouts of Emotions,’ in Heiner Bastian, Andy Warhol Retrospective, London: Tate, 2001). Warhol’s well-documented factory-line production methods are at perhaps their most poignant in his treatment of Marilyn. The slippages and imperfections of silkscreen do much to convey the human fragility of the real woman, distorted and wearing away through merciless iteration. As a pin-up and sex symbol, she was expected to maintain a paradoxically spotless public image; Warhol exposes the tragic contradictions
Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe 1967 portfolio of screenprints on paper, in 10 parts each 91.4 x 91.4 cm (36 x 36 in.) Initialled and stamp numbered on the reverse; further numbered on the reverse A124.086, A130.086-138.086. Published by Factory Additions, New York. This work is comprised of 7 prints numbered 62 and 3 prints numbered 137 from an edition of 250 plus 26 artist proofs. Includes original corrugated portfolio box.
Provenance Galerie Ileana Sonnabend, Paris Collection of Micheline & Claude Renard Christie’s, London, Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, 8 February 2006, lot 46 Private Collection, New York Phillips, New York, Evening Sale, 6 March 2014, lot 12 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner Literature K. McShine (ed.), Andy Warhol A Retrospective, New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1989, . 220 (illustrated) C. Heinrich T Sokolowski, et al., Andy Warhol - Photography, New York: Stemmle Publishers, 1999, p. 55 (illustrated) G. Celant (ed.), Super Warhol, Milan: Skira, 2003, p. 266 (illustrated) F. Feldman and J. Schellmann, Andy Warhol Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné 1962-1967, 4th ed., New York: Distributed Art Publishers Inc. and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc., 2003, cat. no. 11.22-31, pp. 68-69 (illustrated) A. Warhol, G. Mercurio, D. Morera, The Andy Warhol Show, London: Thames & Hudson, 2005, pp. 88-89 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay Eternal and haunting, Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe is an idol of terrifying power. It is an image with which our culture is saturated to the extent that to this day its original impact reverberates, is recapitulated, in continuing affirmation of Warhol’s searing inquest into fame and consumerism. Warhol first created a silkscreen of Monroe in 1962, just weeks after her death at the age of thirty-six. He used a publicity still from her 1953 movie Niagara. The archetypal picture of Monroe in ascension to stardom, this photograph presents a relaxed and sensuous visage: suggestively parted lips, perfect hair, an inviting and smoky gaze. It is a face guilelessly at odds with the brutal and unrelenting serialisation to which Warhol would subject it. One of the earliest Marilyn works was Marilyn Diptych (1962), in which two panels of twenty-five Marilyns are placed side by side; the left group are in vivid colour, while the adjacent panel is monochrome, afflicted by blurring and distortion, outlines and shadows fading as the faces read from left to right. In this gradual attenuation is captured the loss of Marilyn herself, even as a chromatically fortified ‘image’ of the real person remains luridly alive. This is the imagistic power of mass media in action. The work’s designation as Diptych highlights another important aspect of idolatry. A diptych is typically a double screen of religious figures at the altarpiece of a church: as a devout Byzantine Catholic Warhol was brought up to be keenly aware of the rich history of such imagery, the practices of veneration and adoration informing much of his oeuvre. Enshrined in devotional format, Marilyn becomes the central object of image-worship. Both in medium and expression, Warhol seamlessly merges this reliquary fetishisation with his chronicling of mediated modernity. As Heiner Bastian writes, even at this early stage in Warhol’s output ‘the aura of utterly affirmative idolisation already stands as a stereotype of a “consumer-goods style” expression of an American way of life and the mass-media culture of a nation, which, in the early 1960s, were creating dreams and hegemonies (according to wholly technical and material premises), in which goods and messages were beholden to mechanisms of consumerism that applied to both alike. In these works the hyper-icons of Pop turn into icons of demonic emptiness; Warhol’s notion of “beauty” cannot be imagined without tragedy.’ (Heiner Bastian, ‘Rituals of Unfulfillable Individuality – The Whereabouts of Emotions,’ in Heiner Bastian, Andy Warhol Retrospective, London: Tate, 2001). Warhol’s well-documented factory-line production methods are at perhaps their most poignant in his treatment of Marilyn. The slippages and imperfections of silkscreen do much to convey the human fragility of the real woman, distorted and wearing away through merciless iteration. As a pin-up and sex symbol, she was expected to maintain a paradoxically spotless public image; Warhol exposes the tragic contradictions
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