Andy Warhol

Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London
Galeria Mário Sequeira, Braga
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

London, Anthony d'Offay Gallery, Andy Warhol, 1992
Braga, Galeria Mário Sequeira, Andy Warhol, 1998
Rotterdam, Gallery Vips, Andy Warhol, 1998
St. Gallen, Kunstverein Kunstmuseum; Hannover, Sprengel Museum; Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Andy Warhol: Self-Portraits, 2004-05, p. 78, no. 23, illustrated in colour
Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum; Stockholm, Moderna Museet; London, Southbank Centre, Hayward Gallery, Andy Warhol: Other Rooms, Other Voices, 2007-08, p. 49, illustrated in colour

Exhibition Catalogue, Hamburg, Kunsthalle; Pittsburgh, The Andy Warhol Museum, Andy Warhol Photography, 1999-2000, p. 214, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Close inspection reveals very minor wear to all four corners. No restoration is apparent under ultraviolet light.
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Andy Warhol's 1978 Self-Portrait occupies an important position in the evolution of self-depiction that dramatically punctuated the artist's entire artistic career. Warhol's expert dispersal of the silkscreen broadcasts three different images of the artist simultaneously, brilliantly incorporating the techniques of replication for which his art is most famous. Continuing the legendary portrait series that preceded it - from those of Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy to Mao Zedong and Lenin - the present self-portrait reveals the artist grappling less with physiognomic likeness and more with the intangible qualities of fame, notoriety and celebrity. The different poses struck by Warhol are equally inscrutable, each containing a fixed stare that seems determinedly devoid of legible emotion. Freed from the representational prerogatives of traditional portraiture, Self-Portrait uses Warhol's self-image as an impersonal motif to be explored in almost abstract terms.

In direct contrast to the cool objectivity of his 1960s works, which sought to eradicate the energetic excesses of Abstract Expressionism with the objective reproduction and depersonalised flat surface of the mechanical silkscreen, Self-Portrait epitomises Warhol's later investigation into painterly texture. Its background of semi-transparent, fluid brushstrokes and its subtly inflected palette recalls the aged texture and tonal variation of a vintage sepia photograph. As the visages rotate, multiply and superimpose, a ghostly agglomeration of impressions emerges, eliding the viewer’s perception as the proliferated features refuse coherence in a holistic subject. The work thus imbues the image with a feeling of motion and recalling the filmic progression of stills to convey the passage of time.

Warhol's earliest silkscreen subject matter was found images lifted from the mass-reproduced media of newspapers, magazines and advertising, but the imagery of Self-Portrait is based on three Polaroid photographs. Here Warhol creates his own icon, independently engineering emblematic imagery. This work was executed after Warhol's renowned Factory had recently moved from 33 Union Square West to a much larger space at 860 Broadway. The improved environment facilitated the ideological zenith of Warhol's 'production' method wherein he conceived iconic images before collaborating with his team of assistants to multiply these via the silkscreen. Having been initiated in the early 1960s, this approach was now perfected, creating the most exciting and prodigious working environment.

From his earliest photo-booth self-portraits to the final Fright-Wig series, the genre of self-portraiture proved a continual focus for Warhol's output. Warhol had a complicated attitude towards his own appearance and suffered terribly under the self-destructive belief that he was unattractive. From an early age, he purposefully cultivated an unkempt appearance, primarily by crowning himself with an ever-renewing selection of cheap and ruffled white wigs. Closing the gap between caricature and content, Warhol turned his unique appearance into a symbol of himself, which he then scrutinised and valorised through a lifelong devotion to photographing and painting images of his face. Self-Portrait toys with Warhol’s iconic exterior, which by 1978 was immensely famous and instantly recognisable. No mere fifty-year-old man, Warhol appears here as a legend, not by crafting a window into his personal subjectivity but by imbuing him with monumental self-justification.

At the same time, the present work embodies a startlingly frank confrontation with the notion of Self, insofar as his preoccupation with death was personal and profound. The Polaroid sources capture Warhol stock-still and wide-eyed, with a frozen blank expression that purposefully aligns his sculptural facial features with the appearance of a skull. Paintings from the same year show Warhol balancing a skull on top of his head or his shoulder, as if a devoted pet. Warhol described the skull as a parallel or even substitute to his self, once stating: "Death can really make you look like a star" (the artist cited in: Exhibition Catalogue, Bilbao, Guggenheim, Andy Warhol, A Factory, 2000, n.p.).