Andy Warhol

Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York (acquired directly from the artist)

C2 Gallery, Tokyo

Sotheby’s, New York, 7 November 1990, Lot 311 (consigned by the above)

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Tokyo, Mitsukoshi Ltd., Andy Warhol, January 1991

Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Andy Warhol, August - October 1992

Vienna, KunstHausWien, Andy Warhol, February - May 1993

Athens, Galerie Nationale, Andy Warhol, June - August 1993

Thessaloniki, National Gallery, Andy Warhol, August - September 1993

Orlando, Orlando Museum of Art, Andy Warhol, October - December 1993

Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, Andy Warhol, January 1993 - March 1994, p. 54, illustrated in colour 

Taipei, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Andy Warhol: 1928-1987, October - November 1994

Lausanne, Fondation de l’Hermitage, Andy Warhol, May - October 1995, p. 76, illustrated in colour 

Milan, Fondazione Antonio Mazzotta, Andy Warhol, October 1995 - February 1996 

Ludwigshafen, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Andy Warhol, September 1996 - January 1997, p. 147, no. 107, illustrated in colour

Helsinki, Helsinki Kunsthalle, Andy Warhol, August - November 1997

Warsaw, The National Museum in Warsaw; and Krakow, The National Museum in Krakow, Andy Warhol, March - July 1998

Rio de Janeiro, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Warhol, October - December 1999

Kochi, The Museum of Art; Tokyo, The Bunkamura Museum of Art; Osaka, Daimaru Museum; Hiroshima, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art; Sakura, Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art; Nagoya, Nagoya City Art Museum; and Niigata, Niigata City Art Museum, Andy Warhol, February 2000 - February 2001, p. 169, no. 164, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate. Condition: Please refer to the department for a professional condition report.
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On the 12th April 1983 Andy Warhol walked up the steps of the American Museum of Natural History in New York with gallerist Ronald Feldman for the opening night of his latest exhibition, ‘Warhol's Animals: Species at Risk’. Endangered Species: San Francisco Silverspot is an exemplary example from this iconic series that Warhol created to raise environmental awareness of ten endangered species. The idea for this body of work was born a year earlier when Warhol had a discussion with Feldman and his wife Frayda, art dealers and long-time political and environmental activists, about various ecological issues. Inspired by their talk and Warhol’s passion for such issues, the Feldmans, whose gallery Ronald Feldman Fine Art, New York was known for supporting innovative art projects and installations, commissioned Warhol to create a portfolio of ten silkscreen works titled 'Endangered Species'. Warhol, who had an affinity and interest in animals, embraced the idea and selected an array of magnificently diverse animals from across the globe: Siberian Tiger, Bald Eagle, Orangutan, Grevy’s Zebra, Black Rhinoceros, Bighorn Ram, African Elephant, Pine Barrens Tree Frog, Giant Panda and the San Francisco Silverspot.  

The Silverspot is a species of butterfly whose wings are eye-catching with a brown, tan, and black scalloped pattern on their surfaces and orange-brown with characteristic silver spots on the undersides. Here the flawlessly slick print shows Warhol as absolute technical master of the technique that he pioneered. He re-imagines the endangered butterfly, implementing a palette of Day-Glo colours, characteristic of his distinct Pop aesthetic. As it flutters gracefully among the sea of radiating white blades of grass, the butterfly of Endangered Species: San Francisco Silverspot is bejewelled with brilliant reds, greens, blues, and yellows. While painterly in essence, the graphic quality is very much palpable through the vivid and expressive movement of line. It is archetypal of the chromatic brilliance and cartoon-like aesthetic that defines the series.

By the time the present work was produced, Warhol had already achieved fame and fortune for his stylised silkscreen paintings of the 1960s and '70s, which transformed images into high-art icons. He endlessly and obsessively repeated the likeness of celebrities, Pop culture icons, and mass media images over and over again, and in so doing, re-enacted the kind of mechanical reproduction of images that were splashed across the covers of newspapers and television screens. In his final decade he and his art had become synonymous with contemporary American culture itself, yet, this modus operandi took on another dimension when Warhol began appropriating images not only from contemporary mass culture, but from a plight that was not yet highlighted by American society. Indeed, the Endangered Species works affirm Warhol’s status as wry commentator who continually challenged the status quo of the art world and of society in general. It was this highly attuned sense of cultural behaviour that allowed Warhol to create works, such as the Endangered Species series, that today remain deeply relevant.