Beschreibung:

Artist: Andy Warhol (1928-1987) American Title: Kiku (1983) Signature: signed and numbered 187/300 in pencil lower left, with publisher's and printer's blindstamp Medium: screenprint in colours on River BFK wove paper - number 187 from 300 (total edition includes 30 artist's proofs) - published by Gendai Hanga Center, Tokyo, Japan - printed by Rupert Jasen Smith, New York and Ryoichi Ishida, Tokyo Japan Size: 49.85 x 66.05cm (19.6 x 26in) Framed Size: 62 x 78cm (24.4 x 30.7in) Provenance: The Peppercanister Gallery, Dublin; Private Collection Literature: Feldman-Schellmann II.307 (p.134) a#morebtn { color: #de1d01; } a#morebtn:hover { cursor: pointer;} As Andy Warhol's fame grew, he was deluged with invitations, commissions and suggestions for artworks. One of the most apposite was from the Gendai Hanga Centre in Tokyo around 1982. The centre had been established a few years previously (and was active for just over a decade) with the aim of promot... Read more Andy Warhol Lot 18 - 'Kiku (1983)' Estimate: €20,000 - €30,000 As Andy Warhol's fame grew, he was deluged with invitations, commissions and suggestions for artworks. One of the most apposite was from the Gendai Hanga Centre in Tokyo around 1982. The centre had been established a few years previously (and was active for just over a decade) with the aim of promoting fine art printmaking in Japan, and internationally, recalling the country's high reputation in the field: imported 19th Century Japanese woodblock prints had an enormous impact on European artists at the time. The centre collaborated with about 80 artists during its lifetime. Warhol, who favoured simple, iconographic imagery and whose work from the early 1960s centred on coloured silkscreen printmaking, was an ideal candidate. An enthusiastically received retrospective of Warhol's paintings at the Daimaru Store in Tokyo in 1974 marked his introduction to the Japanese art world. One appreciative curatorial visitor noted the artist's hand-coloured silkscreens of Japanese flower arrangements, ikebana. When he was later working with the Gendai Hanga Centre, he initiated negotiations with Warhol, through then Factory manager and close friend Vincent Fremont, with an eye to the artist making works based on the royal flower of Japan, the chrysanthemum, or Kiku. Warhol was very taken with the idea and made a group of collages which formed the basis for editions of prints. Part of the brief was that the works should be appropriate in scale for the average Japanese home. Hence the eventual 300 portfolios, each numbering three prints, are comparatively modest in size. Aidan Dunne, November 2023