“With Warhol’s gallery of contemporary faces, the decade of 1970s high society is instantly captured. In his glittering realm, light and shadow are bleached out by the high wattage of spotlights; colors seem selected from the science-fiction rainbow invented by the likes of Baskin-Robbins; and brushstrokes offer an extravagant, upper-income virtuosity which appears to be quoting, for conspicuous consumption, a bravura tradition that extends from Hals through de Kooning.”
—Robert Rosenblum
Executed in 1972, the present three works by Andy Warhol, titled Karen Lerner, are vibrant and colourful representations of the female journalist, Karen Lerner, who was one of the first women reporters at Life, Time and Newsweek magazines.i With each depiction of Lerner, Warhol is able to skilfully capture the differing aspects of her personality through the use of varying colour palettes and facial expressions. Lerner is captured with a dynamic and lively smile in two works and a more sombre profile view executed in a deep maroon palette.
Andy Warhol, born in 1928 in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, was a pioneering figure in the of Pop Art Movement. The 1960s were a pivotal moment for the artist, producing his first Pop paintings based on famous comics and advertisements.ii His exploration of the themes of capitalism and celebrity expanded into what we now know as his most iconic silkscreen works, depicting famous celebrities such as Marylin Monroe, Elvis Presley, Elizabeth Taylor, and many others. As the decade progressed, so did Warhol’s creation method and process. During the end of the 1960s and early 1970s the artist began using a Polaroid camera to document his everyday life and incorporated into his working method by capturing his famous sitters’ portraits.
The depiction of royalty, the elite, and the wealthy in the form of portraiture has always played a significant part in art history. Artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt van Rijn, Diego Velazquez, John Singer Sargent, and many others come to mind when reminiscing the great portrait painters. Andy Warhol, is a great addition to this list as he “succeeded virtually single-handed[ly]…in resurrecting from near extinction that endangered species of grand-style portraiture of people important, glamorous, or notorious enough – whether statesmen, actresses, or wealthy patrons of the arts – to deserve to leave their human traces in the history of painting.”iii
The present works of Karen Lerner are a magnificent example of how Warhol was able to capture his sitters with his Polaroid camera and transform them into vibrant and electrifying representations of their personalities with the silkscreen printing method.
