Washington Monument (1983)

Andy Warhol – Washington Monument (1983)

Silkscreen and collage on paper by Andy Warhol, Washington Monument (1983) represents a significant example of the artist’s reflection on the symbols of American identity. In this unique work, Warhol focuses on one of the most iconic monuments in the United States, transforming it into an essential and strongly graphic image, consistent with his investigation of visual culture and the construction of the icon.

The composition is organized through a clear chromatic division: broad fields of flat color—warm tones on one side and cool tones on the other—create a background that emphasizes the centrality of the monument. The Washington Monument emerges as a linear and slender form, defined by a thin and precise line, while the collage intervention introduces a material dimension that disrupts the two-dimensionality of the silkscreen surface. The central area, crossed by red and black chromatic vibrations, generates a visual tension that recalls the media-oriented and graphic language typical of Warhol’s production of the 1980s.

Through the reproduction of a national architectural symbol, Warhol reaffirms his interest in collective images and their transformation into contemporary icons. As in his celebrated representations of celebrities and consumer goods, here too the subject is isolated and reduced to a sign, assuming both a historical and media-driven dimension.

Created in 1983 using a mixed technique of silkscreen and collage on paper, the artwork measures 60 x 69 cm and is a unique piece, a feature that enhances its historical and collectible relevance.

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Andy Warhol – Washington Monument (1983) - Unqiue Work

Andy Warhol: Pop Artist

Andrew Warhola, mostly know as Andy Warhol, pop artist, was a painter, sculptor, director and actor.

When Was Andy Warhol Born?

He was born in Pittsburgh the 6 th of August 1928. 

When Did Andy Warhol Die?

The artist will spend his entire life in New York, where he will suddenly die on the 22 nd of February, 1987, at the age of 58.

Andy Warhol: Facts

Since the beginning, the artist had shown his enormous talent for art and, therefore, decided to study graphic art and advertisement at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh.

Right after the degree at the Institute of Technology, he moved to New York, where he started to work in the advertising field for important fashion magazines.

After Andy Warhol death, many of the objects belonged to him has been sold at auction, and the income has been used to finance the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts.

The Foundation, wanted by the artist himself, has always have as main goal that of support and encourage contemporary artistic production, and it is still fully active nowadays.

Moreover, after his death, Andy Warhol’s quotations on the market have been rising vertiginously, making him the most sold artist in the world after Pablo Picasso.

Up until today, Andy Warhol is probably the artist of the XXth century that more has influenced contemporary art and culture.

His background as publicist and advertiser led him to the winning artistic intuition.

One of most important facts about Andy Warhol is that thanks to this job, he had the opportunity to learn photography, medium that will be at the centre of Warhol’s art, but most of all, it allowed him to get closer to the American mass culture of the 1960s: another fundamental concept that will be developed through Andy Warhol art.

Rise of American Pop Art: Andy Warhol Art uses Subjects of the Mass Culture

The second post-war period was full of important artistic experimentations which carried on what had been studied and done by the Artistic Avantgardes of the first half of the 1900.

For this very reason, the new artistic tendencies, born between the end of 1950s and the beginning of the ‘60s, retrieved important themes already developed by the first avantgardes, such as emotional detachment, depersonalisation of the work of art and the loss of subjectivity of the artist.

These themes reached maximum expression with the American Pop Art of the 1960s.

It was a fundamental period for the United States: those were, in fact, the years of the American economic boom, which, together with the fast development of technology, led to the rise of mass culture based on an unrestrained consumerism, the overflow of mass media and the affirmation of Hollywood cinema and its icons.

These tendencies influenced not only the concept of art, but also the way of making it.

The artists soon recognized the critic conditions that were leading American society: the uncontrolled influence of mass media was making the human being more and more alienated and blinded by the fake perfection proposed by the movies and other communication tools, making people unable to distinguish the real life from the fake one, and selling consumerism as the only option for an acceptable lifestyle.

The artistic intuition of the pop art artists arose because of the reflections on this themes and situations.

Since mass media had become the only way of communication, and consumerism products were continuously trivialised by the constant production in series, pop artists realized that it was useless to create and propose a type of art with different subjects from the ones delivered by the mass media.

Pop art is based on retracing this very concept. As a matter of fact, what inspired Andy Warhol were the same products proposed by the media over and over again: Coca cola, Dollar bills, Campbell Soup, Brillo boxes.

They were products that could be found in any supermarket and considered as consumer goods.

Warhol’s decision of repeatedly reproducing the images of these products in his artworks was, really, a critique: in this way they imitated not only the serial production of the goods, but, above all, the morbid and mechanical reiteration of these products on and through advertisement.

The same concepted was applied for Hollywood icons: in the same way of consumer goods, their faces were endlessly repeated in the artist’s artworks.

Emblematic example is Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe, labelled as the main symbol of American mass culture. “Don’t think about making art, just do it. Let the others decide if it’s good or bad, if they like it or not. In the meantime, while the others are deciding, you do more art.” Andy Warhol

It is thanks to this thought if we are still celebrating the founding father of Pop Art.

Andy Warhol let others decide what was art and what was not; he just created and gave birth to all those images that, really, were already existing and impressed in his mind.

This is the reason why we are still celebrating Warhol as an artist, because his pop art artworks still have a meaning to us; his idea of multiple and repetition as representation of the human being as stereotype is still very real nowadays, and it is why we still find his work close to us and accessible.

First and most indicative example can be the MYTHS portfolio, some of his most famous artworks and series that celebrates characters of American pop and cinematic culture, which had become real icons: Dracula, Santa Claus, Superman, Uncle Sam and many others; all of them known and loved by the public whom identified itself in them.

It is important to say, though, that the goal of the American Pop Art was not that of following trends.

On the contrary, the aim was the opposite: to use not just the images, but also the tone and the language of mass media, so to be sure to spread a clear message, intelligible to all, of critique towards the alienated and depersonalized American mass culture and society of those years.

Pop Art Andy Warhol : The Distruction of the Halo

Andy Warhol artworks gave birth to the iconic Marilyns, to the concept of reproduction as practice of emptying of meaning, as with Coca Cola or the Dollar bills reproduced in series, and, thanks to the famous Campbell Soup, to the destruction of the halo of the work of art, already started by the Dadaists and, even before, by the rise of photography.

By halo is meant that traditional characteristic of the work of art intended as something that can be enjoyed only in one place and in one time because unique in the world.

With the Avantgardes of the XXth century and the advent of photography, the traditional concept of halo is destroyed: thanks to the new technologies, every work of art can be reproduced infinite times, and anyone can enjoy it everywhere, anytime.

If, at the beginning, art and the concept of art is changed by the possibilities brought by photography and new technology, it is only with the time that artists learnt to properly use and develop new techniques.

The American Pop Art is a clear example of this new way of creating art, most of all Andy Warhol’s pop art.

The Campbell’s Soup artworks are the proof of how effective can be the technique of reproducing the same object several time, in order to send a strong and provocative message about the mass culture and consumerism and, at the same time, to elevate a common object to work of art.

Moreover, thanks to the reproduction process, many people can enjoy Andy Warhol artworks, becoming main characters of the rise of American Pop Art, rather than just spectators.

King of pop art, Andy Warhol has been a visionary, ahead of his times, which is why he is consider as the forerunner of many other contemporary art movements, which look back at him for inspiration.

Certainly, Andy Warhol art and its themes are still very actual, demonstrating that, in order to be contemporary, an artist does not necessarily need to be still alive.

Warhol and the Music World

Because of his illustrators jobs for record labels and luxury brands, Warhol created the covers of many records and magazines which remained, and will remain, stuck in the collective imagination of great part of the global population.

Moreover, with the cover of the album of the Velvet Underground Andy Warhol went a step further:

If the cover had been designed by “Warhol illustrator”, the signature he put on it took the cover itself to another level, transforming it in a work of art.

With pop art, the signature acquires an important meaning; if, before, the work of art could be considered as such just for its own properties, now the signature of the artist makes the difference.

Many others magazines, cards, postcards, albums, dollars bills have acquired importance just because signed by the artist himself, transforming them from daily objects into works of art.

Andy Warhol: Most Famous Work

Andy Warhol's Artworks wanted to reach as many people as possible, therefore decided to choose subjects and themes that could be understood and recognized by the majority of the audience.

For example, with his numerous portraits of Marylin Monroe Andy Warhol reached the peak of his artistic production. Others of Andy Warhol Most Famous Works are Campbell'S Soup, Flowers and Mao.

Priceless Value: Andy Warhol Signature 

As already stated, Andy Warhol signature used to have -and still does- an immense value.

On certain occasions, like the vernissages of his exhibitions, Warhol used to give away smaller copies of his most famous artworks, which he hand signed personally.

Today these reproductions have become real pop art artworks of great value just because of his signature on them.

Some examples can be the Andy Warhol Ladies and gentlemen for sale with signature. 

On Collection of Deodato Art Galleries you can find Unique Pieces with Authentic Andy Warhol Signature. All Andy Warhol Artworks for Sale Signed include a genuine Certificate of Authenticity (COA).

Andy Warhol: Marilyn Monroe

In Marilyn Monroe the artist found the perfect subject for his art. Speaking mostly about screen printing Andy Warhol chose the most famous image of the sex symbol.

Also, this choice was not casual: Warhol decided to represent the actress not as a person but as icon.

In those years, Marilyn was a famous American actress, at the peak of her career and embodiment of ideal beauty and ideal lifestyle promoted by the mass media.

As a matter of fact, with Marilyn Monroe Andy Warhol represents a symbol of the American culture and of that kind of perfect life that every American wanted to achieve.

With screen printing technique, Warhol adds flashy colours, reduces the details and flattens the image, in order to lower the emotional impact of this particular subject, which still represent a famous woman.

Peculiarity of Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe prints is the minimization of the details, with the aim to avoid any particular that could distract the viewer from the main subject.

Another important characteristic is the two-dimensional representation, apt to focus the spectator on the “icon” rather than on the person.

The work representing Marilyn Monroe was realized after her sudden death. In this way, the artist sanctified the actress as Icon of the masses, like any other consumer good.

In order to do so, Warhol relied on the screen print technique, reproducing the face of the actress many times in different colours.

As a matter of fact, this printing technique allows to easily change the colours applied to the same subject, making therefore even easier to reproduce them in series.

This is how the work “Four Marilyn” was created: all identical but in different colours. Also in this case, Warhol relied on the reproduction in series and the concept of repetition.

Andy Warhol: Campbell Soup Cans

Another Andy Warhl most famous work is that representing the Campbell Soup Cans, a product that was common and known by everyone.

With Campbell's Soup Andy Warhol become one of the most famous and expensive pop artist of the United States.

As already done by Claes Oldenburg, the American Pop Artist takes common and daily objects and represents them on big scale.

The bigger dimensions have the aim to give an alienating effect to the object, in order to move the spectator to recognize and reflect on the obsessive relationship with the object in question.

32 Campbell’s Soup Cans is made by 32 cans of soup, slightly different from each other for the ingredients, posed next to each other as they are on the shelves of the supermarkets.

As with his other subjects, in the Campbell Soup Andy Warhol has found the perfect image to describe the consumerism that was afflicting the American society of the 1960s, which he wanted to criticize with his pop art artworks.

Like the Marilyns, these works present a clear simplification of the details; in fact, the bi-dimensional cans are added on a simple white background which highlights the cans themselves.

The 32 Campbell Soup Cans represent the first moment of notoriety of the artist, followed by Andy Warhol first exhibition in a New York Gallery.

The screen print representing the 32 cans -on which the artist intervened later with paint additions- was also published on the Times.

After the first personal exhibition, some critics defined Andy Warhol artworks provocative, but also banal and “flat”; although negative, these words perfectly summarized the pillars that support Warhol’s art: objectivity and repetition.

Andy Warhol: Flowers ScreenPrints

Andy Warhol Flower print summarize perfectly the concept of repetition, even though they might seem distant from his usual subjects.

Realized for the first time 1964 and based on a photograph by Patricia Caufield, the artist made several copies of them, in different colours, transforming the Andy Warhol Flowers series into a reinterpretation of the still life that all the great masters of art have made.

The photographer Patricia Caulfield, aware of the success of the Andy Warhol exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery in 1964 which started the success of the flowers of the artist Andy Warhol, took a legal action against Andy Warhol in 1966 for the appropriation of the image that concluded with an agreement between the two.

Also, in the case of the Flowers, we are talking about Andy Warhol screenprints. It is obvious then how the artist found in this medium the best technique to express this tendency of repetition.

After the initial success of these artworks, the publishing house Sunday B. Morning decided to print other copies.

At the beginning, Warhol did not authorize these extra copies, but, after seeing the success of the artworks, he decided to add his signature, still signalling though that they had not been made by his own initiative: on the back of these reprints Andy Warhol signature cites: “This is not by me. Andy Warhol”.

Andy Warhol Artworks: Works by Andy Warhol on Sale on Deodato Arte

For years Deodato Arte has been dealing modern and contemporary art, among which also works by Andy Warhol.

On our website, the most complete and reliable in Italy, you can find on sale Andy Warhol paintings, screen prints, lithographies, with the guaranteed support of art professionals.

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