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Lot Essay
By depicting Elvis Presley as a towering colossus, Andy Warhol not only confirms the singer’s status as the King of Rock and Roll, but also his place in the artist’s own pantheon of Pop icons. Painted in 1963, this large-scale painting is the culmination of a series of portraits in which Warhol not only immortalized Hollywood royalty such as Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor, but also considered the precarious nature of their fame. The present work was painted just months after he completed his iconic 32 Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962, Museum of Modern Art, New York) and marks the moment when he began to infuse those previously static images with a dramatic new sense of dynamism and energy. The present work is just one of ten Double Elvis [Feris Type] paintings, four of which are in major museum collections. Together they have come to represent the moment when Warhol emerged from his initial triumph and cemented his reputation as the smartest and most insightful cultural observers of the postwar generation.
Standing nearly seven feet tall, the distinctive figure of Elvis Presley dominates this monumental 1963 Pop classic. The present work is one of only two canvases in the Double Elvis [Ferus Type] series in which the artist renders the second impression of the rock star as a ghostly apparition. This spectral figure acts to enhance the clarity of the central figure: Elvis’s famous pompadour hairstyle, the barrel of his single action Colt revolver, the broad swathes of his belt and holster, and his sturdy boots are all the more prominent for their generous application of jet-black silkscreen ink. The duality between the areas of light and shadow, and between foreground and background, make the present work one of the most striking examples from the series.
In 1963, Presley’s career was at a turning point and sensing this, Warhol decided it was the perfect moment to turn his cultural gaze towards the singer. Remarkably, however, he decided not to source an image from the King of Rock and Roll’s musical career, but instead used a publicity photograph from his appearance as the star of a 1960 movie called Flaming Star. After his discharge from the army that year, Elvis released several more hit records, but he also resumed his burgeoning film career. His manager, Colonel Tom Parker, arranged a seven motion picture deal with 20th Century Fox, of which Flaming Star was one. This shift away from teen heartthrob to all-round entertainer was an interesting move for Presley as it largely abandoned the teenage market that had obsessively supported him in the early days if his career. By the time the present work was executed, Elvis was regarded as a relatively respectable figure and the cultural landscape was changing. The British invasion of the Beatles was just around the corner and one only needs to look at the photographs of the Velvet Underground, Warhol's protégés from a few years later, as evidence that they were a far cry from the smooth, homely, chiseled Elvis of the Flaming Star publicity stills.
Warhol’s Double Elvis paintings were produced during a prolific period when the artist painted some of most of his most culturally significant works. Following on from his 32 Campbell’s Soup Cans, Warhol turned to another quintessentially American product, Hollywood. Beginning with a series of canvases featuring repeated images of teen stars such as Troy Donahue and Waren Beatty, in August 1962 Warhol began work on his gleaming golden portrait of Marylin Monroe. Regarded as one of the highpoints of the artists’ career, it is one of the first paintings in which Warhol truly understands the emotional power an image can possess.
After a brief sojourn to paint his Death and Disaster paintings, in the summer of 1963, Warhol returned to the subject of Hollywood for inspiration. When they were exhibited at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, the Elvis paintings—including the present work—were to be hung edge-to-edge, much like the Soup Cans were in 1962. In a bid to play up on the Hollywood theme, Warhol had arranged for a popular young starlet, Jean Seberg, to be photographed in front of his Elvis paintings for a photoshoot in Glamor magazine. The idea worked, with his Elvis paintings appearing at the forefront of cultural zeitgeist. The attention was now firmly on Warhol, and his choice of Hollywood royalty as subject matter meant that the public’s attention was now firmly focused on the artist once again.
Warhol first depicted Elvis Presley in the fall of 1962 in three canvases that used the pictorial format of repeating an image of the head of Elvis in a all-over grid. Red Elvis (1962), the largest of these early Elvis paintings is also thought to the first example of a new procedure that Warhol would go on to use throughout 1963-64. For it is with this work that, for the first time, the artist abandons his elaborate methods of color registration that he used in his earliest Marilyn and Troy paintings and instead simply painted the background a single color and the screened his chosen image directly on top using black silkscreen ink.
The Ferus Elvis canvases were the first time that Warhol had employed the specific type of overlapping images featured in the present work in any of his paintings. Although repetition had been a familiar compositional device in Warhol’s work beginning with 200 Campbell’s Soup Cans in early 1962, he had only overlapped images using the entire frame, never just the subject matter, resulting in blurred and dense arrangements. However, when working on the Elvis canvases with assistant Gerard Malanga, Warhol appeared open to trying something new. “I deliberately moved the image over to create a jump effect, and he liked it,” Malanga explained, “I think, he even did one where there were three or four rapid successions” (quoted in G. Frei and N. Prinz, The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings and Sculptures, 1961-1963, vol. 01, New York, 2002, p. 355). The present work is a particularly fine example of this new ‘filmic’ effect. With its repeated, almost flickering, image it replications the effect of the cinematic projection process whereby a single frame of film is projected on a silver screen at 24 frames per second.
Thus, Warhol’s Double Elvis [Ferus Type] stands as a pivotal work within the artist’s vast and expansive body of work. It is one of the central pillars of his pantheon of Hollywood stars, and alongside his portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, and James Dean, contributes to the artist’s introspective look at the importance of popular culture and the mass media in postwar America. But it also shows Warhol as a highly innovative artist, a constant innovator experimenting with new and audacious modes of visual communication. As with so much of Warhol's work, this picture is a modern gleaming icon, a shimmering promise of fame, fortune, and eternal celebrity. But it is also a conceptually rich painting at the vanguard of Pop Art that today—fifty years after it was painted--continues to confront, defy and engage its viewer and it is perhaps for this reason that Warhol's Elvis series has become so iconic in its own right.
Standing nearly seven feet tall, the distinctive figure of Elvis Presley dominates this monumental 1963 Pop classic. The present work is one of only two canvases in the Double Elvis [Ferus Type] series in which the artist renders the second impression of the rock star as a ghostly apparition. This spectral figure acts to enhance the clarity of the central figure: Elvis’s famous pompadour hairstyle, the barrel of his single action Colt revolver, the broad swathes of his belt and holster, and his sturdy boots are all the more prominent for their generous application of jet-black silkscreen ink. The duality between the areas of light and shadow, and between foreground and background, make the present work one of the most striking examples from the series.
In 1963, Presley’s career was at a turning point and sensing this, Warhol decided it was the perfect moment to turn his cultural gaze towards the singer. Remarkably, however, he decided not to source an image from the King of Rock and Roll’s musical career, but instead used a publicity photograph from his appearance as the star of a 1960 movie called Flaming Star. After his discharge from the army that year, Elvis released several more hit records, but he also resumed his burgeoning film career. His manager, Colonel Tom Parker, arranged a seven motion picture deal with 20th Century Fox, of which Flaming Star was one. This shift away from teen heartthrob to all-round entertainer was an interesting move for Presley as it largely abandoned the teenage market that had obsessively supported him in the early days if his career. By the time the present work was executed, Elvis was regarded as a relatively respectable figure and the cultural landscape was changing. The British invasion of the Beatles was just around the corner and one only needs to look at the photographs of the Velvet Underground, Warhol's protégés from a few years later, as evidence that they were a far cry from the smooth, homely, chiseled Elvis of the Flaming Star publicity stills.
Warhol’s Double Elvis paintings were produced during a prolific period when the artist painted some of most of his most culturally significant works. Following on from his 32 Campbell’s Soup Cans, Warhol turned to another quintessentially American product, Hollywood. Beginning with a series of canvases featuring repeated images of teen stars such as Troy Donahue and Waren Beatty, in August 1962 Warhol began work on his gleaming golden portrait of Marylin Monroe. Regarded as one of the highpoints of the artists’ career, it is one of the first paintings in which Warhol truly understands the emotional power an image can possess.
After a brief sojourn to paint his Death and Disaster paintings, in the summer of 1963, Warhol returned to the subject of Hollywood for inspiration. When they were exhibited at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, the Elvis paintings—including the present work—were to be hung edge-to-edge, much like the Soup Cans were in 1962. In a bid to play up on the Hollywood theme, Warhol had arranged for a popular young starlet, Jean Seberg, to be photographed in front of his Elvis paintings for a photoshoot in Glamor magazine. The idea worked, with his Elvis paintings appearing at the forefront of cultural zeitgeist. The attention was now firmly on Warhol, and his choice of Hollywood royalty as subject matter meant that the public’s attention was now firmly focused on the artist once again.
Warhol first depicted Elvis Presley in the fall of 1962 in three canvases that used the pictorial format of repeating an image of the head of Elvis in a all-over grid. Red Elvis (1962), the largest of these early Elvis paintings is also thought to the first example of a new procedure that Warhol would go on to use throughout 1963-64. For it is with this work that, for the first time, the artist abandons his elaborate methods of color registration that he used in his earliest Marilyn and Troy paintings and instead simply painted the background a single color and the screened his chosen image directly on top using black silkscreen ink.
The Ferus Elvis canvases were the first time that Warhol had employed the specific type of overlapping images featured in the present work in any of his paintings. Although repetition had been a familiar compositional device in Warhol’s work beginning with 200 Campbell’s Soup Cans in early 1962, he had only overlapped images using the entire frame, never just the subject matter, resulting in blurred and dense arrangements. However, when working on the Elvis canvases with assistant Gerard Malanga, Warhol appeared open to trying something new. “I deliberately moved the image over to create a jump effect, and he liked it,” Malanga explained, “I think, he even did one where there were three or four rapid successions” (quoted in G. Frei and N. Prinz, The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings and Sculptures, 1961-1963, vol. 01, New York, 2002, p. 355). The present work is a particularly fine example of this new ‘filmic’ effect. With its repeated, almost flickering, image it replications the effect of the cinematic projection process whereby a single frame of film is projected on a silver screen at 24 frames per second.
Thus, Warhol’s Double Elvis [Ferus Type] stands as a pivotal work within the artist’s vast and expansive body of work. It is one of the central pillars of his pantheon of Hollywood stars, and alongside his portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, and James Dean, contributes to the artist’s introspective look at the importance of popular culture and the mass media in postwar America. But it also shows Warhol as a highly innovative artist, a constant innovator experimenting with new and audacious modes of visual communication. As with so much of Warhol's work, this picture is a modern gleaming icon, a shimmering promise of fame, fortune, and eternal celebrity. But it is also a conceptually rich painting at the vanguard of Pop Art that today—fifty years after it was painted--continues to confront, defy and engage its viewer and it is perhaps for this reason that Warhol's Elvis series has become so iconic in its own right.