Andy Warhol - Property from The Vanmoerkerke Collection, Belgium London Wednesday, April 2, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts; Marc Jancou Fine Art, New York

  • Catalogue Essay

    In the early 1980s Andy Warhol painted a variety of iconic objects, including guns, knives, and crosses. Warhol rejected the idea that his work functioned as social criticism and instead described himself as an American artist who was merely depicting his environment. This description suggests that his paintings of guns be read in the same way as his images of Campbell’s Soup, Marilyn Monroe, or Coca-Cola—as simply images of American icons. Yet, as with many of Warhol’s statements and works, there is the surface of things and then the multiple meanings below it. Gun ownership in America is hugely popular, in part, because it gives people a sense of security. Hollywood imagery and video games add to the allure of guns. The gun is also, through its widespread use and availability in America, a tool of real and commonplace violence. In his choice of such richly associative iconic objects, Warhol becomes a truly artful social observer.  (From “edu.warhol.org”)

  • Artist Biography

    Andy Warhol

    American • 1928 - 1987

    Andy 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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29

Guns

1982
Graphite on HMP paper.
23 x 31 1/2 in. (58.4 x 80 cm).
Stamped with the Estate and Foundation seals on the reverse.

Estimate
£20,000 - 30,000 

Sold for £22,100

Property from The Vanmoerkerke Collection, Belgium

3 Apr 2008, 4pm
London