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Lot Essay
In the mid-1960s John and Dominique de Menil commissioned Andy Warhol to produce a film of spiritual significance for a proposed ecumenical chapel at the 1968 San Antonio World’s Fair. Subsequently, Warhol recorded on 16 mm. film over the course of 33 minutes a sunset over the Pacific Ocean in California. The real-time footage features the deep voice of Velvet Underground singer Nico reading poetry off-screen and shows the slow and colorful shift of atmospheric light at dusk as the sun fades into the horizon.
A still from the film is widely considered to be the source image for Warhol’s 1972 eponymous series of screenprints designed for famed architects Johnson & Burgee’s project the Hotel Marquette Minneapolis, Minnesota. When the hotel was renovated in 1981, the prints were returned to Warhol to be signed, numbered and stamped ‘HOTEL MARQUETTE PRINTS’.
Warhol ultimately printed 632 distinct Sunset screenprints, 472 of which were used in the hotel rooms and 160 assembled into 40 unique portfolios of four prints. All prints used three screens — one to apply the background bands of color, one for the sun itself and one with a single-color dot pattern.
Although each print is unique, Sunset marks Warhol’s first portfolio wherein the prints are numbered and assembled as standard edition prints. Pushing the traditional boundaries for editioned prints and blurring the lines between his unique material and his printed editions, the Sunset series is widely considered to be one of Warhol’s most expressive projects.
A still from the film is widely considered to be the source image for Warhol’s 1972 eponymous series of screenprints designed for famed architects Johnson & Burgee’s project the Hotel Marquette Minneapolis, Minnesota. When the hotel was renovated in 1981, the prints were returned to Warhol to be signed, numbered and stamped ‘HOTEL MARQUETTE PRINTS’.
Warhol ultimately printed 632 distinct Sunset screenprints, 472 of which were used in the hotel rooms and 160 assembled into 40 unique portfolios of four prints. All prints used three screens — one to apply the background bands of color, one for the sun itself and one with a single-color dot pattern.
Although each print is unique, Sunset marks Warhol’s first portfolio wherein the prints are numbered and assembled as standard edition prints. Pushing the traditional boundaries for editioned prints and blurring the lines between his unique material and his printed editions, the Sunset series is widely considered to be one of Warhol’s most expressive projects.