Lot Essay
Two distinctive but contrasting approaches to art are represented by the sitter and artist of this portrait. Whereas Warhol was inspired by the urban jungle and its glamorous society whirl, Beuys was a Romantic at heart, who alligned himself directly to the forces of nature. Nevertheless, strong similarities existed. Both artists were worshipped like gurus by their own cultural circles. Each created for himself an immediately identifiable physical image that both affirmed and transcended his art: Beuys with his trade-mark felt hat and army waist-coat; Warhol with his characteristic blond wig, palid skin and black sunglasses.
As David Bourdon writes, "Though Beuys's art is formally and thematically quite different from Warhol's, the two artists were frequently linked by critics who perceived them as possessing an almost alchemical ability to transform ordinary objects into valuable artworks. The two artists were never close friends but they displayed an elaborate and wily respect for each other. They met "officially" in Dusseldorf - in Hans Mayer's Gallery - on May 18, 1979. "For those who witnessed the two approaching each other across the polished granite floor," an American writer reported, "the moment had all the ceremonial aura of two rival popes meeting in Avignon." Warhol typically recorded the event in snapshots of Beuys's gauntly poetic face that would soon materialize in a number of striking portraits." (David Bourdon, Warhol, New York 1989, p. 385).
The present painting is one of the earliest of these portraits. For it, Warhol used his reversal technique, whereby he printed a negative image of a photograph to create a truly haunting effect. In addition, he sprinkled the picture with glittering diamond dust which gave free rein to his penchant for the glitz and kitsch of the Hollywood dream. The mystifying Joseph Beuys appears like a saint with the shadow of his hat acting as a halo above his head. The reversal technique makes the face ghost-like and painfully gaunt, while the diamond dust gives him the ethereal aura of a 1940s film star. Warhol has made Beuys as much an icon of his time as Marilyn or Elvis. And like the latter two idols, Beuys' tragic death six years later, a year before Warhol's own untimely death, has bestowed on him a martyr-like status that is strangely predicted in the meditative beauty of this portrait.
As David Bourdon writes, "Though Beuys's art is formally and thematically quite different from Warhol's, the two artists were frequently linked by critics who perceived them as possessing an almost alchemical ability to transform ordinary objects into valuable artworks. The two artists were never close friends but they displayed an elaborate and wily respect for each other. They met "officially" in Dusseldorf - in Hans Mayer's Gallery - on May 18, 1979. "For those who witnessed the two approaching each other across the polished granite floor," an American writer reported, "the moment had all the ceremonial aura of two rival popes meeting in Avignon." Warhol typically recorded the event in snapshots of Beuys's gauntly poetic face that would soon materialize in a number of striking portraits." (David Bourdon, Warhol, New York 1989, p. 385).
The present painting is one of the earliest of these portraits. For it, Warhol used his reversal technique, whereby he printed a negative image of a photograph to create a truly haunting effect. In addition, he sprinkled the picture with glittering diamond dust which gave free rein to his penchant for the glitz and kitsch of the Hollywood dream. The mystifying Joseph Beuys appears like a saint with the shadow of his hat acting as a halo above his head. The reversal technique makes the face ghost-like and painfully gaunt, while the diamond dust gives him the ethereal aura of a 1940s film star. Warhol has made Beuys as much an icon of his time as Marilyn or Elvis. And like the latter two idols, Beuys' tragic death six years later, a year before Warhol's own untimely death, has bestowed on him a martyr-like status that is strangely predicted in the meditative beauty of this portrait.