20
Andy Warhol
Electric Chairs
- Estimate
- £60,000 - 80,000
£122,500
Lot Details
The complete set of ten screenprints, in colours, on wove paper.
each sheet 90 x 121.4 cm. (35 3/8 x 47 3/4 in.)
Signed and dated ‘Andy Warhol ‘71’ in black ballpoint pen and stamp numbered ‘064/250’ on the reverse (there were also 50 artist’s proofs in Roman numerals), published by Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich (with their copyright stamp on the reverse).
Specialist
Full-Cataloguing
Catalogue Essay
‘The more you look at the same exact thing, the more the meaning goes away, and the better and emptier you feel’ ANDY WARHOL
The present lot is a complete portfolio comprised of ten prints of the Electric Chair, each depicting the same image, while variations in color, exposure, and painterly gestures give a unique feature to each print. The picture used is derived from the Electric Chair paintings made by Warhol in the 1960’s, now cropped to present the chair alone in the foreground.
Warhol’s disturbing images of a solitary mechanism standing in an estranged concrete space is thought to be the electric chair from Sing Sing Penitentiary in Ossining, New York. Made infamous by the executions of the Rosenbergs, the electric chair was a topical subject in New York during this period, generating much public debate. Fundamentally a murder-machine fabricated by the same industrial system of mass production that produced Campbell soup cans and Coke bottles, the electric chair discerns pictorial truths of the death industry in America and the dark side of consumer capitalist culture.
The present lot is a complete portfolio comprised of ten prints of the Electric Chair, each depicting the same image, while variations in color, exposure, and painterly gestures give a unique feature to each print. The picture used is derived from the Electric Chair paintings made by Warhol in the 1960’s, now cropped to present the chair alone in the foreground.
Warhol’s disturbing images of a solitary mechanism standing in an estranged concrete space is thought to be the electric chair from Sing Sing Penitentiary in Ossining, New York. Made infamous by the executions of the Rosenbergs, the electric chair was a topical subject in New York during this period, generating much public debate. Fundamentally a murder-machine fabricated by the same industrial system of mass production that produced Campbell soup cans and Coke bottles, the electric chair discerns pictorial truths of the death industry in America and the dark side of consumer capitalist culture.
Provenance
Exhibited
Literature
Andy Warhol
American | B. 1928 D. 1987Andy Warhol was the leading exponent of the Pop Art movement in the U.S. in the 1960s. Following an early career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol achieved fame with his revolutionary series of silkscreened prints and paintings of familiar objects, such as Campbell's soup tins, and celebrities, such as Marilyn Monroe. Obsessed with popular culture, celebrity and advertising, Warhol created his slick, seemingly mass-produced images of everyday subject matter from his famed Factory studio in New York City. His use of mechanical methods of reproduction, notably the commercial technique of silk screening, wholly revolutionized art-making.Working as an artist, but also director and producer, Warhol produced a number of avant-garde films in addition to managing the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground and founding Interview magazine. A central figure in the New York art scene until his untimely death in 1987, Warhol was notably also a mentor to such artists as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
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