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Lot Essay
'These frozen images are modern-day Madonnas. Andy was a strict Catholic. His Marilyn, Liz and Jackie become religious relics, and like Leonardo's La Gioconda, they are portraits of women radiating beauty. They are not photographs of public starts but... icons of our time' (P. Brant, Women of Warhol, Marilyn, Liz and Jackie, exh. cat., C&M Arts, New York 2000, p. 3).
'Warhol's Reversals recapitulate his portraits of famous faces but with the tonal values reversed. As if the spectator was looking at photographic negatives, highlighted faces have gone dark while former shadows now rush forward. The reversed Marilyns, especially, have a lurid otherworldly glow, as if illuminated by internal footlights' (D. Bourdon, Warhol, New York, 1989, p. 378).
Executed at the peak of Andy Warhol's fame, Four Marilyns (Reversal Series, Black/Green), belongs to the artist's retrospective Reversal Series created between 1979 and 1986. Of all the Reversal paintings that Warhol made, it is the marilyns that provide the most haunting imagery and which have the most lasting resonance. In Four Marilyns (Reversal Series, Black/Green), the iconic features of the actress Marilyn Monroe are shown in negative, glowing minty green against the inky black background, a contrast that introduces a sense of electricity to the picture. The result is a striking combination of old and new. As David Bourdon explains, 'Warhol's Reversals recapitulate his portraits of famous faces but with the tonal values reversed. As if the spectator was looking at photographic negatives, highlighted faces have gone dark while former shadows now rush forward. The reversed Marilyns, especially, have a lurid otherworldly glow, as if illuminated by internal footlights' (D. Bourdon, Warhol, New York, 1989, p. 378).
The Reversal Series, designated as such due to the artist's reversal of his earlier silk-screen images employed to create negative impressions of familiar subjects. Central to Andy Warhol's pantheon of Pop icons from the 1960s, which included Elizabeth Taylor, Jackie Kennedy and Elvis, Marilyn Monroe was Warhol's cult queen of celebrity. Ever since 1962, when Warhol first captured the lustrous splendor of Monroe's face in Gold Marilyn Monroe (Museum of Modern Art, New York), the artist had been enraptured by her beguiling beauty, attempting to immortalize her beauty through his screen-prints following her death. As a result of this series, Warhol's image of Marilyn has come to signify the Pop movement of the 1960s. By revisiting his own iconic representation of Marilyn two decades later in the Reversal Series, Four Marilyns (Reversal Series, Black/Green), suggests Warhol's image of Marilyn has surpassed the fame of the actress herself.
Borrowing from his own catalogue of imagery and printing the negative image of his subjects, Warhol reinvented his most iconic works, refreshing them for a new generation by providing a post-modern reinterpretation of his own art, effectively re-contextualizing an appropriation of an appropriation. Part pastiche of his earlier work and part reinvention, Warhol's Reversal Series addresses the artist's own fame through the plundering his own visual lexicon, taking the icons which he had himself helped to create and reviving them. By silkscreening the negative image of the original photograph and illuminating its shadows, the resultant image seemingly presents the alter-egos of his celebrated icons. By revisiting Marilyn, Warhol portrays a nostalgic representation of a beloved icon; at once enchanting yet detached she acts as a remote artifice of bygone Hollywood.
Widely considered the most successful negative form from the Reversal Series, the image of Marilyn epitomizes the haunting representation of the film star. In this chic black and minty white version, Marilyn's face is illuminated by flashes of phosphorescent hues; the screen goddess takes on a haunting quality, the reversal process bestowing on Marilyn the monumental and almost timeless quality of a classical sculpture. Repeated four times against the black background as if in a filmstrip, Four Marilyns (Reversal Series, Black/Green) is a stylish monument to Monroe, Hollywood and the illusion of the Silver Screen deliberately intertwined with the mystique of Warhol's own legend.
'Warhol's Reversals recapitulate his portraits of famous faces but with the tonal values reversed. As if the spectator was looking at photographic negatives, highlighted faces have gone dark while former shadows now rush forward. The reversed Marilyns, especially, have a lurid otherworldly glow, as if illuminated by internal footlights' (D. Bourdon, Warhol, New York, 1989, p. 378).
Executed at the peak of Andy Warhol's fame, Four Marilyns (Reversal Series, Black/Green), belongs to the artist's retrospective Reversal Series created between 1979 and 1986. Of all the Reversal paintings that Warhol made, it is the marilyns that provide the most haunting imagery and which have the most lasting resonance. In Four Marilyns (Reversal Series, Black/Green), the iconic features of the actress Marilyn Monroe are shown in negative, glowing minty green against the inky black background, a contrast that introduces a sense of electricity to the picture. The result is a striking combination of old and new. As David Bourdon explains, 'Warhol's Reversals recapitulate his portraits of famous faces but with the tonal values reversed. As if the spectator was looking at photographic negatives, highlighted faces have gone dark while former shadows now rush forward. The reversed Marilyns, especially, have a lurid otherworldly glow, as if illuminated by internal footlights' (D. Bourdon, Warhol, New York, 1989, p. 378).
The Reversal Series, designated as such due to the artist's reversal of his earlier silk-screen images employed to create negative impressions of familiar subjects. Central to Andy Warhol's pantheon of Pop icons from the 1960s, which included Elizabeth Taylor, Jackie Kennedy and Elvis, Marilyn Monroe was Warhol's cult queen of celebrity. Ever since 1962, when Warhol first captured the lustrous splendor of Monroe's face in Gold Marilyn Monroe (Museum of Modern Art, New York), the artist had been enraptured by her beguiling beauty, attempting to immortalize her beauty through his screen-prints following her death. As a result of this series, Warhol's image of Marilyn has come to signify the Pop movement of the 1960s. By revisiting his own iconic representation of Marilyn two decades later in the Reversal Series, Four Marilyns (Reversal Series, Black/Green), suggests Warhol's image of Marilyn has surpassed the fame of the actress herself.
Borrowing from his own catalogue of imagery and printing the negative image of his subjects, Warhol reinvented his most iconic works, refreshing them for a new generation by providing a post-modern reinterpretation of his own art, effectively re-contextualizing an appropriation of an appropriation. Part pastiche of his earlier work and part reinvention, Warhol's Reversal Series addresses the artist's own fame through the plundering his own visual lexicon, taking the icons which he had himself helped to create and reviving them. By silkscreening the negative image of the original photograph and illuminating its shadows, the resultant image seemingly presents the alter-egos of his celebrated icons. By revisiting Marilyn, Warhol portrays a nostalgic representation of a beloved icon; at once enchanting yet detached she acts as a remote artifice of bygone Hollywood.
Widely considered the most successful negative form from the Reversal Series, the image of Marilyn epitomizes the haunting representation of the film star. In this chic black and minty white version, Marilyn's face is illuminated by flashes of phosphorescent hues; the screen goddess takes on a haunting quality, the reversal process bestowing on Marilyn the monumental and almost timeless quality of a classical sculpture. Repeated four times against the black background as if in a filmstrip, Four Marilyns (Reversal Series, Black/Green) is a stylish monument to Monroe, Hollywood and the illusion of the Silver Screen deliberately intertwined with the mystique of Warhol's own legend.