Lot 10
  • 10

Andy Warhol

Estimate
1,500,000 - 2,500,000 GBP
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Description

  • Andy Warhol
  • Camouflage Self-Portrait
  • signed and dated 86 on the overlap
  • acrylic silkscreen ink on canvas
  • 101.6 by 101.6cm.
  • 40 by 40in.

Provenance

Private Collection, Portland (acquired directly from the artist in 1986)
Grant Selwyn Fine Art, New York
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2002

Exhibited

New York, Van de Weghe Fine Art, Andy Warhol, Self-Portraits 1963-1986, no. 36, p. 78, illustrated in colour

Condition

The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the pink tones are slightly lighter in the original. This work is in very good condition. Close inspection reveals three small hairline cracks towards the centre of the overturn top edge, and a very thin and minor diagonal rub-mark towards the left of the face, which is visible in the catalogue illustration. No restoration is apparent under ultraviolet light.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

The progenitor of Pop and the arbiter of Consumerism, Andy Warhol ultimately became more famous than many of the celebrities he dedicated his career to depicting. Indeed, the historic cycle of Self-Portraits in his oeuvre chart the rise of his brand in its own right and stand as the lifeblood of his work. Furthermore, of all the self portraits he made throughout his lifetime it was the 1966 works and the 1986 series which are most revered. As Georg Frei and Neil Printz have said, "Warhol's 1966 Self-Portrait is probably the most well-known of the three versions he produced during the 1960s and, with his Self-Portrait of 1986, one of the most representative and iconic images of the artist" (Georg Frei and Neil Printz, Eds., The Andy Warhol Catalogue RaisonnĂ©, Volume 2B, Paintings and Sculptures 1964-1969, London and New York 2004, p. 227). These works are the final, definitive self-image that Warhol left for posterity, and the presentCamouflage Self-Portrait  is a breathtaking exemplar from this canon. Executed only months before his unexpected death in hospital on 22 February 1987 while recovering from gall bladder surgery, the 1986 self-portraits are universally acknowledged as Warhol's last great artistic gesture in which he re-attains the artistic high-ground of his seminal works from the 1960s.

The present work not only occupies the central ground of the cycle, but being beautifully composed through the pulsating camouflage schema is also injected with a spectacular chromatic intensity and all the sophisticated conceptual associations of his late adoption of camouflage. His adoption of brilliant pink, yellow, blue and orange in a patterned camouflage design transforms the present work into an even more powerfully elegiac painting. The visually dynamic camouflage is supposedly defined by its ability to conceal and so, while we are forced to ask what Warhol is concealing, the unashamed luminosity of the acrylic ground screams for our attention. Warhol's genius for irony is seemingly most dramatic in the employment of disguise in the act of revelation.

In the present work, although he is wearing his trademark wig, Warhol stares directly out of the canvas with unprecedented directness. For the first and only time, in the 1986 self-portraits the shy, elusive Warhol, who preferred to hide behind an elaborate public persona, candidly exposes himself to our scrutiny. In doing so, the quintessential flaneur of his age himself becomes the object of our gaze and his 1967 statement finally rings true "If you want to know about Andy Warhol, then just look at the surface of my pictures, my movies and me and there I am; there's nothing in between" (the artist cited in: Gretchen Berg, 'Andy: My True Story,' in Los Angeles Free Press, 17 March 1967, p. 3).

Here, more than in any other of his self-portraits, Warhol tackles the challenge of self-depiction with an unrivalled and up-close theatricality, presenting an image both of Warhol the man and Warhol the artistic phenomenon. His last self-portrait catalogues the transformation in his ageing features in parallel to the technical transformation in his art from maverick to master. Using his face as an arena for technical and compositional experimentation, by now Warhol had harnessed and honed to sheer perfection the silkscreen process which he had introduced to fine art practice in the early 1960s. Immortalising the mysterious and enigmatic artistic persona that Warhol had meticulously cultivated throughout his career, the present self-portrait is his swan song before the curtain came down on one of the most prodigious careers in the History of Art. As Robert Rosenblum says, "Always theatrical, [Warhol] now donned his fright wig for a series of self-portraits that... we are tempted to experience as a last will and testament" (Robert Rosenblum, 'Andy Warhol's Disguises' in Exhibition Catalogue, St. Gallen Kunstverein Kunstmuseum, Andy Warhol, Self Portraits, 2004, p. 26).