Andy Warhol, ‘Silver Liz,’ 1963. Employing the mass-media technique of screen-printing, Warhol created 13 portraits of Elizabeth Taylor at the height of her fame. Via Corcoran.
Currently showing at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais is a selection from the thousand or so portraits that Andy Warhol painted in 1962 and onwards. During that time, Warhol produced commissioned portraits of film and rock stars, fashion designers, artists, politicians and more obscure personalities using his signature technique–silkscreens, reproduced serially. A pioneer of the Pop Art movement, his use of image repetition was seen as a commentary on the nature of consumer society and mass culture, and his focus on personalities contributed to a revival of portraiture at large. As the artist prophetically put, “All my portraits have to be the same size, so they’ll all fit together and make one big painting called Portraits of Society. That’s a good idea, isn’t it? Maybe the Metropolitan Museum would want it someday.”
Related links:
Hidden Depths: Paris Exhibition Aims to Paint Warhol as a Modern Master [GuardianUK]
Andy Warhol’s World Wide Comes to Paris [Reuters]
Saint Laurent Portraits Out of Warhol Show [NYTimes]
The Endless Fifteen Minutes [NYMag]
Christie’s Seeking Buyer for Warhol Mao in Hong Kong [ArtInfo]
Warhol Sales Make $10.5 Million as Sotheby’s Turns to Big Names [Bloomberg]
Andy Warhol ‘Jean-Michel Basquiat,’ 1982. Warhol collaborated with Basquiat, the American graffiti artist, in the 1970s and 1980s.Via Antiques.
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