Andy Warhol - Untitled (Ms. B and Yucca) - image-1

Lot 16 D

Andy Warhol - Untitled (Ms. B and Yucca)

Auction 1187 - overview Cologne
03.12.2021, 18:00 - Evening Sale - Modern and Contemporary Art
Estimate: 300.000 € - 400.000 €

Andy Warhol

Untitled (Ms. B and Yucca)
1981

Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas. 101.5 x 101.5 cm. Signed and dated 'Andy Warhol 1981' on canvas overlap. - Minor traces of age.

Portraits pertain to Andy Warhol's most renowned works and pervade his entire oeuvre. He captured friends, family members, contemporary celebrities, and strangers in photographs and films and translates these photographic models into drawings and overpainted silkscreens in a painterly manner. In the 1970s, he became a sought-after portrait artist of the international jet set, making portrait painting acceptable again. The superficiality and equally fascinating intensity of depiction are characteristic of his portraits. Warhol was capable of capturing the charisma of the depicted person, however, he simultaneously lent the faces the flawless, impenetrable sleekness of an advertising illustration.
He largely removed the halftones of the photographic original, leaving only the very light and very dark areas. The silkscreen developed on this basis was printed on canvas and was partly reworked by him manually. In doing so, he actively intervened through the use of colour, he “applied make-up” to the faces and emphasised the parts of the physiognomy that were most relevant to him: the mouth and the eyes. Regardless of whether he knew the portrayed person personally or not, he elevated their likeness to a supernatural, glamorous ideal. “His portraits are icons waiting for the future rather than testimonies of the present,” David Bourdon states (Andy Warhol, exhib.cat. Kunsthaus Zurich, Bern 1978, p.158).
His portraits are characterised by the focus on the face, which takes up most of the picture in a large format and essentially without supplementary elements. A quite humorous feature of the present work is therefore the dominant presence of the dog, whose depiction obviously particularly appeals to the artist­ - in fact, this is a case of a double portrait of two equally perceived individuals. This is also reflected in the additional work title which names the animal while the name of its owner is reduced to her initials.
The intensive colouring is also noteworthy. Sharply delineated areas of colour in pale blue, lime green, and pink are the backdrop and yet also pervade the portrait. The red lips correspond to the stripes in the blouse, the dog's black fur is worked in dark violet. The result is a cool, radiant atmosphere of great lightness.

Provenance

Galerie Denise René/Hans Mayer, Düsseldorf (adhesive label verso); private collection, South Germany

Exhibitions

Cologne 2001 (Jablonka Galerie), Andy Warhol, Portrait Drawings, exhib.cat. no.5 with double-sided colour ill. of design sketch

Hamburg 1999 (Hamburger Kunsthalle), Pittsburgh 2000 (The Andy Warhol Museum), Andy Warhol - Photography, exhob.cat., p.182 with colour ill. of a Polaroid of the protrayed with dog