Andy Warhol

Estate of the Artist, United States
Private Collection

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the white tends more towards cream in the original. The catalogue illustration also fails to fully convey the thick impasto apparent in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Close inspection reveals some light wear in places along the edges with two tiny and unobtrusive losses to the extreme lower corners. Further close inspection reveals some light cracks in places to the white paint, mainly to the right edge. There is evidence of a small impact to the left edge, approximately 20 cm. above the lower left corner, with a small loss. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultraviolet light.
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“Nothing can always be the subject of something”

ANDY WARHOL


With bursts of colour subtly appearing through thickly impastoed layers of black and white paint, the present two lots are rare and intriguing examples of Andy Warhol’s radical experimentation with abstract painting. Although he is most famous for iconic Pop imagery of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor or Jackie Kennedy, the artist’s oeuvre is so diverse that it should come as no surprise that he would push his painterly practice to the extremes of abstraction.

Following the figurative works of the 1960s that depicted cultural icons and commodity symbols, Warhol’s oeuvre took a new turn in the late 1970s and 1980s with experiments in abstract painting. Besides his most famous works from this period – the Shadow paintings, the Oxidation or Piss paintings and the Rorschachs series - Warhol also produced a series of abstract paintings that includes the present two works. Executed in 1982, they show Warhol at his most experimental, pushing his work to new levels of abstraction. Whereas most of the artist’s abstract paintings are still recognisable as images, as in the case of the Shadows, or as traces of a process, as with the Oxidation series, the present two Abstract Paintings show Warhol entirely immersed in the physical act of painting. Indeed, the highly worked and painterly surface of these works is reminiscent of Gerhard Richter’s finger-painting - defining Warhol as a pure painter, continuously exploring new materials and techniques.

Regarded as some of the more intellectual works of his career, the abstract paintings break with his earlier paintings stylistically, but come from the same philosophical spirit. As Warhol explains his abstract work: “Nothing can always be the subject of something. I mean, what’s nice about those paintings is you could do them every five years... anytime you wanted to, when you had the time... because there’s nothing to read into them... Because even if the paints stayed the same, everything else –and everyone else –would have changed” (Andy Warhol, quoted in: Exh. Cat., New York, Gagosian Gallery, Cast a Cold Eye: The Late Work of Andy Warhol, p. 198).

The abstract works were in some ways also a reaction against the artist’s fatigue with some of his earlier work, and a desire for a radically new direction. Coming back from a trip to Paris, he wrote in his diary: “I wanted to rush home and paint and stop doing society portraits” (Andy Warhol quoted in: Ariella Budick, ‘Andy Warhol’s mature abstract works’, Financial Times, 25 June 2010, online). Using the same 40 by 40 inch format of the Society Portraits, the present two Abstract Paintings appear to be direct reaction to this earlier body of work.

Capturing Andy Warhol’s radical and innovative spirit, these two works stand as a testament to his impressive body of late abstract paintings. Perfectly representing Andy Warhol’s understanding of art beyond any single style or medium, and the relentless experimentation that he pursued throughout his oeuvre, these works are rare insights into the mind of one of the most influential artists of the last century.