Ethel Scull

In June of 1963, Robert and Ethel Scull approached Andy Warhol to commission a portrait. Instead of taking his subject to a traditional photography studio, Warhol brought her to an automatic photo-booth on 42nd. street, where he proceeded to create numerous photo-strips of the great collector of Pop Art. Upon completing all of the photographs, Warhol then chose thirty-five of the images, enlarged them, and then silkscreened and inked each of them to create one of his most famous silkscreen paintings, Ethel Scull 36 Times, now in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Gerard Malanga recalled that this was probably the first time that Warhol had used the photo-booth as the basis for his portrait paintings, a process which he would continue to use and develop throughout the 60s and 70s. The present work is one of the original photo strips that was used to create the famous masterpiece Ethel Scull 36 Times.