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Lot Essay
The title is from an important series of Camouflage paintings, executed in 1986, by Warhol, shortly before his death in 1987. The Camouflage paintings have emerged as a key series of the 1980s and are intriguing for a number of reasons. Firstly, they can be seen on a semiotic level; as an arrangement of pattern and form, on a symbolic level; the theme of camouflage and disguise in relation to the artist and on an art historical level, as connected with Abstract Expressionism.
The Camouflage series initially derived from a forty inches sample of fabric netting which was bought by Warhol at an Army surplus store. Warhol cropped and selected areas of this sample, so that whilst many of the works in this series have the same underlying pattern, the repetition of the pattern has certainly been manipulated in the silk-screening process. Together with the unique colour and paint application and differing canvas sizes, each work is quite different from the other.
In the present work, Warhol has used four distinct colours. The pale pink ground has been applied uniformly over the canvas with a brush, and the remaining colours; the olive-green, brown and a startingly clear green/blue, have been silk-screened over the top in varying patterns, so as to suggest that the pale pink ground is a pattern in itself. It is the icy blue-green colour, in particular, which enables us to see in this abstract painting, the suggestion of an organic natural form such as the reflection of sunlight on water, or the topographical landscape of the Florida everglades, for example.
Alternatively, we could read into the repetition of the camouflage motif, the theme of disguise and 'blending in' - possibly referencing the artist's personal life within the fashion-conscious and celebrity society of New York in the 1980s. Indeed, the camouflage design was, with Warhol's approval, adopted by the fashion industry, and resulted in the production of the 'Sprouse' camouflage dress and camouflage trousers. There are many further obvious parallels between fashion design and camouflage.
It is interesting too, that the Camouflage series, like many of Warhol's later works such as the Oxidation paintings of 1978, obliquely refer to Abstract Expressionism. But they combine this with the impersonality and commercialism of Pop Art. Having deliberately mocked the Abstract Expressionist in some of his works of the 1960s, works such as Camouflage transform the raw elements of abstraction into a Pop medium and a fashion statement. In this way the Camouflage series not only escapes the serialisation of earlier repetitive works, but is also a testament to the artist's prolificality, breadth of vision and his skill as a serious abstract painter.
The Camouflage series initially derived from a forty inches sample of fabric netting which was bought by Warhol at an Army surplus store. Warhol cropped and selected areas of this sample, so that whilst many of the works in this series have the same underlying pattern, the repetition of the pattern has certainly been manipulated in the silk-screening process. Together with the unique colour and paint application and differing canvas sizes, each work is quite different from the other.
In the present work, Warhol has used four distinct colours. The pale pink ground has been applied uniformly over the canvas with a brush, and the remaining colours; the olive-green, brown and a startingly clear green/blue, have been silk-screened over the top in varying patterns, so as to suggest that the pale pink ground is a pattern in itself. It is the icy blue-green colour, in particular, which enables us to see in this abstract painting, the suggestion of an organic natural form such as the reflection of sunlight on water, or the topographical landscape of the Florida everglades, for example.
Alternatively, we could read into the repetition of the camouflage motif, the theme of disguise and 'blending in' - possibly referencing the artist's personal life within the fashion-conscious and celebrity society of New York in the 1980s. Indeed, the camouflage design was, with Warhol's approval, adopted by the fashion industry, and resulted in the production of the 'Sprouse' camouflage dress and camouflage trousers. There are many further obvious parallels between fashion design and camouflage.
It is interesting too, that the Camouflage series, like many of Warhol's later works such as the Oxidation paintings of 1978, obliquely refer to Abstract Expressionism. But they combine this with the impersonality and commercialism of Pop Art. Having deliberately mocked the Abstract Expressionist in some of his works of the 1960s, works such as Camouflage transform the raw elements of abstraction into a Pop medium and a fashion statement. In this way the Camouflage series not only escapes the serialisation of earlier repetitive works, but is also a testament to the artist's prolificality, breadth of vision and his skill as a serious abstract painter.