Beschreibung:

Andy Warhol Untitled (Cars) 1962 screenprint on paper 60.9 x 45.7 cm. (23 7/8 x 17 7/8 in.)
Provenance The Estate of Andy Warhol New York. The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., New York Gagosian Gallery, New York Exhibited New York, Gagosian Gallery, Andy Warhol Drawings and Related Works 1951-1986, 13 February - 22 March 2003 Catalogue Essay “ Everybody has their own America...” ANDY WARHOL Executed in 1962,Untitled (Cars) is a perfect example of Andy Warhol’s studies into America’s growing consumerism in the mid 20th century. At a time when the American people collectively took strides towards their individual slice of the American dream, Warhol’s commercial imagery explored this phenomenon along with its trappings of desire and the ‘pop culture’ which it ensued. The subject choice of the present lot is the absolute definition of America’s aspiration at this time, through the artist’s decision to use his nation’s most famous development, the motor car. The revolution of motorised transport not only changed the modern world but had also become the American symbol for ambition through its connotations of wealth and status. Drawing a parallel with this transitional and productive time for America, Warhol, as a successful artist, had also made a similar journey with his early foray into commercial illustration providing the foundations for his meteoric rise as an independent artist in his own right. This early commercial grounding played a significant role in his adopted artistic processes, such as the screen printing technique found in this present lot, which often mirrored the mass production of the subject he sort to depict. Warhol’s oeuvre encapsulates arguably some of the most famous images of the 20th century- perhaps most notable are his works of Campbell’s soup cans and those of the celebrities which became symbolic of the 1960s such as Marilyn Monroe Untitled (Cars) comes from the same year as these iconic images; being equally seminal in subject, this lot is truly characteristic of Warhol and his legacy as the most celebrated American artist of the 20th century. Read More Artist Bio Andy Warhol American • 1928 - 1987 A seminal figure in the Pop Art movement of the early 1960s, Andy Warhol's paintings and screenprints are iconic beyond the scope of Art History, having become universal signifiers of an age. An early career in commercial illustration led to Warhol's appropriation of imagery from American popular culture and insistent concern with the superficial wonder of permanent commodification that yielded a synthesis of word and image, of art and the everyday. Warhol's obsession with creating slick, seemingly mass-produced artworks led him towards the commercial technique of screenprinting, which allowed him to produce large editions of his painted subjects. The clean, mechanical surface and perfect registration of the screenprinting process afforded Warhol a revolutionary absence of authorship that was crucial to the Pop Art manifesto. View More Works