Andy Warhol
"Jackie"
1963/1964

About the Item

Synthetic polymer and silkscreen ink on heavy stock. This work is registered with The Andy Warhol Foundation as a painting. Similar work on manila is depicted in The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonne Vol 02A on page 948. When Andy Warhol learned that President John F. Kennedy had died on November 22nd 1963, the first thing the artist said was "well, let's get to work." Warhol was fascinated by JFK's assassination and the media coverage of the event. He later observed, "It didn't bother me that much that he was dead. What bothered me was the way television and radio were programming everyone to feel so sad. It seemed no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't get away from the thing." But Warhol did not depict the assassination of the President in his paintings. Instead, he chose to focus on the president's wife Jackie Kennedy. He picked out images of the First Lady that were taken shortly before and after her husband's death and cropped them to zoom in on her face. He then screen-printed them onto canvases. and the resulting portraits display a range of emotions—from Jackie smiling while wearing a pillbox hat, to her inscrutable expression, obscured by a black veil, on the day of her husband's funeral. Each image is on a different colored canvas and the screen printing process left some of the impressions in bold black ink, and others blurry. Warhol painted multiple images of Jackie Kennedy throughout his career, and while many of them celebrated her as an American icon, the images of her that he created shortly after her husband's death resonate deeply with sadness, not only for the president's death but also for the commodification of the first lady's grief. Provenance Acquired by the former owner directly from the artist in 1967. The work was requested for examination by Thomas Ammann Art in 1988 In 1996 the work was examined by Georg Frei from The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonne. In 1998 The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonne confirms by writing that the work is registered in their archives. Sothebys London. Phillips Auction London.

Creator:
Andy Warhol (1928 - 1987, American)
Creation Year:
1963/1964
Dimensions:
Height: 18.12 in (46 cm)Width: 14.57 in (37 cm)
Medium:
Acrylic Polymer
Movement & Style:
Pop Art
Period:
Late 20th Century
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Helsingør, DK
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU2578212584412
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Andy Warhol

The name of American artist Andy Warhol is all but synonymous with Pop art, the movement he helped shape in the 1960s. He was phenomenally prolific, and the archive of original photography, prints, drawings, paintings and other art that he left behind is beyond vast.

Andy Warhol is known for his clever appropriation of motifs and images from popular advertising and commercials, which he integrated into graphic, vibrant works that utilized mass-production technologies such as printmaking, photography and silkscreening. Later in his career, Warhol expanded his oeuvre to include other forms of media, founding Interview magazine and producing fashion shoots and films on-site at the Factory, his world-famous studio in New York.

Born and educated in in Pittsburgh, Warhol moved to New York City in 1949 and built a successful career as a commercial illustrator. Although he made whimsical drawings as a hobby during these years, his career as a fine artist began in the mid-1950s with ink-blot drawings and hand-drawn silkscreens. The 1955 lithograph You Can Lead a Shoe to Water illustrates how he incorporated in his artwork advertising styles and techniques, in this case shoe commercials.

As a child, Warhol was often sick and spent much of his time in bed, where he would make sketches and put together collections of movie-star photographs. He described this period as formative in terms of his skills and interests. Indeed, Warhol remained obsessed with celebrities throughout his career, often producing series devoted to a famous face or an object from the popular culture, such as Chairman Mao or Campbell’s tomato soup. The 1967 silkscreen Marilyn 25 embodies his love of bright color and famous subjects.

Warhol was a prominent cultural figure in New York during the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. The Factory was a gathering place for the era’s celebrities, writers, drag queens and fellow artists, and collaboration was common. To this day, Warhol remains one of the most important artists of the 20th century and continues to exert influence on contemporary creators.

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