.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Warhol's 1978, Self-Portrait with a Skull refers to the long-established artistic tradition of self-portraiture, the memento mori. Many Old Master portraits included motifs such as the skull or the candle that were specifically designed to remind the viewer - and indeed the sitter - of the omnipresence of death. In invoking this tradition, Warhol emphasised both his status as an artist and, paradoxically, the iconoclasm that so marked his career. In perversely extending his use of new materials and artistic processes to this almost classic idiom of portraiture, the image undermines the viewer's complacency at being confronted by a supposedly conservative image. This work in particular, with its strange, flame-like flashes of colour that so disrupt the silver and black of the near monochromatic picture, bends and straddles boundaries, deliberately managing to seem both mass-produced and yet unique.
In the late 1970s, one of the main streams of Warhol's artistic output was his glamour portraits. The strength of much of his previous Pop Art, where he had hijacked popular images like the Campbell's Soup cans, was now twisted and where he had formerly made posters into art, the vanity of his socialite sitters demanded that he make their portraits look like they were worthy of posters. The Warhol touch itself seemed to bestow celebrity status on the sitter. One of the few people aware of the irony in such self-promotion was Warhol himself, and he continued his endeavours in that field with incredible zeal.
A part of this promotional process involved his self-portraits - Warhol bestowing Warhol status on himself. Self-Portrait with a Skull captures the intense vanity of the age, and yet twists it completely. The skull on this essentially vain self-portrait acts as a vanitas, emphasising the work's own futility and the mortality of the artist, despite the immortality he bestowed upon himself in recording his image. The inclusion of this memento mori in the late 1970s is itself an interesting social comment, and almost a snub to some of his sitters, as he reminds himself, and any viewers, of the futility of vanity and the universality of death.
Self-Portrait with a Skull is at the same time a personal gesture on Warhol's part, a remembrance to a friend, as shown by the inscription on the overlap. The picture was a gift to Warhol's friend and Zurich dealer, Bruno Bischofberger.
In the late 1970s, one of the main streams of Warhol's artistic output was his glamour portraits. The strength of much of his previous Pop Art, where he had hijacked popular images like the Campbell's Soup cans, was now twisted and where he had formerly made posters into art, the vanity of his socialite sitters demanded that he make their portraits look like they were worthy of posters. The Warhol touch itself seemed to bestow celebrity status on the sitter. One of the few people aware of the irony in such self-promotion was Warhol himself, and he continued his endeavours in that field with incredible zeal.
A part of this promotional process involved his self-portraits - Warhol bestowing Warhol status on himself. Self-Portrait with a Skull captures the intense vanity of the age, and yet twists it completely. The skull on this essentially vain self-portrait acts as a vanitas, emphasising the work's own futility and the mortality of the artist, despite the immortality he bestowed upon himself in recording his image. The inclusion of this memento mori in the late 1970s is itself an interesting social comment, and almost a snub to some of his sitters, as he reminds himself, and any viewers, of the futility of vanity and the universality of death.
Self-Portrait with a Skull is at the same time a personal gesture on Warhol's part, a remembrance to a friend, as shown by the inscription on the overlap. The picture was a gift to Warhol's friend and Zurich dealer, Bruno Bischofberger.