Beschreibung:

PROPERTY FROM A PROMINENT COLLECTION Andy Warhol Mrs. Pritzker 1982 synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink on canvas 40 x 40 in. (101.6 x 101.6 cm.) Signed and dated "Andy Warhol 82" along the overlap; further stamped twice with The Estate of Andy Warhol and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. and numbered "P050.090" along the overlap.
Provenance The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., New York Exhibited New York, Tony Shafrazi Gallery, Andy Warhol Portraits, May 12 - October 1, 2005 Literature T. Shafrazi, Andy Warhol Portraits, New York: Phaidon, 2007, pp. 6-7 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay “If you want to know all about Andy Warhol just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There’s nothing behind it.” (Andy Warhol in, T. Shafrazi, Andy Warhol Portraits, New York: Phaidon, 2007, p. 17). Warhol’s iconic 40 x 40 inch portraits from the mid-1980s collate to provide a glamourized yearbook of socialites, friends, dealers and tycoons; the collection of portraits ultimately comprises a rolodex of the icons of the late 20th century. Through his crisp screens and vibrant palette, Warhol renders each seemingly recognizable face into a fresh and dazzling portrait. Each sitter, regardless of their prominence or popularity, is submitted to Warhol’s process; his process of transformation, production and idealization. In the present lot, Cindy Pritzker, wife of Jay Pritzker, founder of the Hyatt hotel chain, is portrayed in a light untouched by the photographic truth of which her image originates. Her depiction is ageless; a Barbielike beauty bedecked in the perfect wet inks of Warhol’s technique. Her eyes are delicately painted with crystal blue pigments, contrasting greatly with the bright red inks that comprise her ever slight smile. Her coifure is rendered in a perfect buttercup yellow, almost blending with the creamy backdrop which she stands before. Warhol removes the sort of facets that provide a photograph with its absolute integrity; suppressing, extracting, and standardizing Mrs. Pritzker’s head shot into a graphic surface of forceful individuality. “His portraits transformed aging socialites into Venus de Milos, and their industrialist husbands into Florentine Davids—or at least, into Hollywood facsimiles thereof…” (Bob Colacello in, Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up, New York: Harper Collins, 1990, p. 89). Read More Artist Bio Andy Warhol American • 1928 - 1987 A seminal figure in the Pop Art movement of the early 1960s, Andy Warhol's paintings and screenprints are iconic beyond the scope of Art History, having become universal signifiers of an age. An early career in commercial illustration led to Warhol's appropriation of imagery from American popular culture and insistent concern with the superficial wonder of permanent commodification that yielded a synthesis of word and image, of art and the everyday. Warhol's obsession with creating slick, seemingly mass-produced artworks led him towards the commercial technique of screenprinting, which allowed him to produce large editions of his painted subjects. The clean, mechanical surface and perfect registration of the screenprinting process afforded Warhol a revolutionary absence of authorship that was crucial to the Pop Art manifesto. View More Works