拍品專文
Ivan Karp, the art dealer who worked with Leo Castelli in the 1960s, reported that Andy Warhol came to see him on two occasions concerned that he had no subject to paint. Karp first suggested that Warhol incorporate cows into his repertoire, a suggestion which brought about the creation of Cow Wallpaper; his second suggestion was that Warhol attempt self-portraiture. 'Ivan, there's nothing left for me.' He said, 'I'm a popular character, I've done all sorts of...but I've got no images.' I said, 'What's left for you? Do yourself.' Right? 'Do you.' That's when he did the portraits of himself" (Ivan Karp interviewed in October 1978 in quoted in P.S. Smith, Andy Warhol's Art and Films, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1986, p. 358).
His initial foray into this field was a four-image repetition on canvas, culled from a photomat print taken in 1964. In 1966, Warhol had his portrait taken by a professional photographer, and it is this image which Warhol and his assistant Gerald Malanga enlarged into a photo silkscreen and printed in a combination of colors. Warhol printed this work in two sizes, the first twenty-two inches high, and the second, enlarged to seventy-two inches, a more limited production of which the present work is an example.
Warhol first witnessed the process of sillkscreen in Robert Rauschenberg's studio, and soon Warhol began to experiment with it in his own work. Warhol was eager to test this new method, as it appeared to be a relatively simple process with a mass-produceable appeal. He could easily reproduce the same image over and over in a variety of colors. However, he lacked the patience that this process required and immediately set up something akin to an image bank, from which he could simply chose a subject and color. Warhol was characteristically self-deprecating when he said in 1968, "I tried doing them by hand, but I find it easier to use a screen. This way, I don't have to work on objects at all. One of my assistants or anyone else, for that matter, can reproduce the designs as well as I could." Though he relinquished control over the physical printing of the image, he maintained absolute creative control of the cropping and placement of images, as well as the combinations of colors in any work. The present work has a dramatic refulgent quality that is enhanced by the use of only one glossy ink for the image itself over a soaked base color.
The subject of the self-portrait was bound to fascinate the withdrawn young man anxious for fame and was one to which he returned at the height of his career. The image of Warhol here is pensive, partly hidden by his fingers covering his mouth; it conveys the reticence and shyness of the younger Warhol, the knowing passivity that encouraged his acquaintances to rely upon him as a confidant. It has the sublime coolness of the man who was entirely public and yet remained veiled by his own persona. The essence of Warhol's art is anonymity, the lack of an emotional timbre in presentation of places and people. It is clearly there in the horrific images that he used for his Disaster and Execution series, but it also exists in this series of portraits. Warhol is expressionless and partly masked, both in the image itself and in the use of the screen process to print it. The simple single screen here adds to the mysterious quality of the work.
Warhol showed six paintings from this series in the Montreal Expo in 1967 in Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome. Carter Ratcliff described the strategy of the display, 'Creative America,' as a deliberate conjunction of the seriousness of high art and the banalities of pop culture. "This was a successful tactic, which most of our major museums and educational institutions have adopted. Instead of rejecting Pop art, they have found a comfortable place for it in the recent history of serious painting and sculpture... the difficult aspects of Warhol's art have gone largely unnoticed. His paintings do not, after all, simply provide a transition from consumer culture to high art. They call into question the uses to which we put all of our images, especially images of ourselves" (C. Ratcliff, Andy Warhol, New York, 1983, p. 56).
Other versions of Self Portrait are in the collections of the Tate Gallery, London; Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, and the Bayerische Staatsgemldesammlungen, Munich. A double image is in the Detroit, Institute of Arts.
His initial foray into this field was a four-image repetition on canvas, culled from a photomat print taken in 1964. In 1966, Warhol had his portrait taken by a professional photographer, and it is this image which Warhol and his assistant Gerald Malanga enlarged into a photo silkscreen and printed in a combination of colors. Warhol printed this work in two sizes, the first twenty-two inches high, and the second, enlarged to seventy-two inches, a more limited production of which the present work is an example.
Warhol first witnessed the process of sillkscreen in Robert Rauschenberg's studio, and soon Warhol began to experiment with it in his own work. Warhol was eager to test this new method, as it appeared to be a relatively simple process with a mass-produceable appeal. He could easily reproduce the same image over and over in a variety of colors. However, he lacked the patience that this process required and immediately set up something akin to an image bank, from which he could simply chose a subject and color. Warhol was characteristically self-deprecating when he said in 1968, "I tried doing them by hand, but I find it easier to use a screen. This way, I don't have to work on objects at all. One of my assistants or anyone else, for that matter, can reproduce the designs as well as I could." Though he relinquished control over the physical printing of the image, he maintained absolute creative control of the cropping and placement of images, as well as the combinations of colors in any work. The present work has a dramatic refulgent quality that is enhanced by the use of only one glossy ink for the image itself over a soaked base color.
The subject of the self-portrait was bound to fascinate the withdrawn young man anxious for fame and was one to which he returned at the height of his career. The image of Warhol here is pensive, partly hidden by his fingers covering his mouth; it conveys the reticence and shyness of the younger Warhol, the knowing passivity that encouraged his acquaintances to rely upon him as a confidant. It has the sublime coolness of the man who was entirely public and yet remained veiled by his own persona. The essence of Warhol's art is anonymity, the lack of an emotional timbre in presentation of places and people. It is clearly there in the horrific images that he used for his Disaster and Execution series, but it also exists in this series of portraits. Warhol is expressionless and partly masked, both in the image itself and in the use of the screen process to print it. The simple single screen here adds to the mysterious quality of the work.
Warhol showed six paintings from this series in the Montreal Expo in 1967 in Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome. Carter Ratcliff described the strategy of the display, 'Creative America,' as a deliberate conjunction of the seriousness of high art and the banalities of pop culture. "This was a successful tactic, which most of our major museums and educational institutions have adopted. Instead of rejecting Pop art, they have found a comfortable place for it in the recent history of serious painting and sculpture... the difficult aspects of Warhol's art have gone largely unnoticed. His paintings do not, after all, simply provide a transition from consumer culture to high art. They call into question the uses to which we put all of our images, especially images of ourselves" (C. Ratcliff, Andy Warhol, New York, 1983, p. 56).
Other versions of Self Portrait are in the collections of the Tate Gallery, London; Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, and the Bayerische Staatsgemldesammlungen, Munich. A double image is in the Detroit, Institute of Arts.