Andy Warhol

William Ehrlich Collection, New York
June Smerling Collection, New York
Susan Sheehan Gallery, New York
Private Collection, Europe

The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné, Paintings and Sculpture 1964-1969, Volume 02B, London, 2004, no. 1952, p. 302, illustrated in colour

The colours are fairly accurate in the catalogue illustration. The work is executed on its original canvas and is not relined. The upper corners and lower right corner present some minor wears. On tiny paint loss located by the upper edge, close to the right corner is only visible under very close inspection. Under Ultra Violet light inspection there is no evidence of restoration. This work is in very good condition.
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“Warhol’s portraits deflect the documentary force of photography, glamourizing the evidence delivered by the lens, reimagining it in ways that can endow a simple headshot with the aura of an impossibly intense individuality"
Carter Ratcliff in Tony Shafrazi, Andy Warhol Portraits, New York 2007, p. 21

Fascinated by reproduction and the effects thereof, the subject of Andy Warhol’s portraits often embodied both his and the public’s preoccupation with fame and notoriety. Created in parallel of the exhibition Portraits of the Artists at Leo Castelli Gallery in 1967, Robert Rauschenberg is a powerful and very significant work in which Warhol acknowledges the power of portrait to bring forth the idea of America’s infatuation with celebrities.

The 1960s were boom years, and Castelli was recognized as the epicentre, the pinnacle of the New York art scene. A new era for American Art had begun – Abstract Expressionism was on its way out, and Pop Art, Minimalist and Conceptual Art were taking its place.  Warhol was part of the exclusive group of avant-garde New York artists, including Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg, Chamberlain, Twombly and Johns among others, represented by Leo Castelli and his ground-breaking gallery.
In 1967, Warhol chose them as subjects for this portrait series, a family like-portrait depicting on canvas the boundless creativity and diversity of Castelli artists and gallery - the ultimate commemoration for the 10 year anniversary of the inauguration of the gallery.

Despite the stylistic differences between the different photographs used by Warhol for the series - some cropped in close-up, some intact, others tilted to the side – the carefully curated polaroids become paintings and take their place alongside the swarm of twentieth-century personalities celebrated throughout Andy Warhol’s art. With Portraits of the artists, Robert Rauschenberg ultimately becomes a work of art himself, gazing out at the viewer with an unblinking stare.

COMP

Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol, New York City, 1965 ©Bob Adelman