Later Warhols (from 1967)
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Warhol Celebrities by Warhol Self portrait Christianity
Chronology : 1967 1970-1979 1972 1976 1980-1989 1982 1986
See also : Warhol Celebrities by Warhol Self portrait Christianity
Chronology : 1967 1970-1979 1972 1976 1980-1989 1982 1986
1967-1968 Big Electric Chair
2014 SOLD for $ 20.4M by Sotheby's
Andy Warhol becomes famous in 1962 with his multiple paintings of Marilyn Monroe, started just after the death of the actress from a single image transferred to silkscreen. Geldzahler suggests that the artist treats the theme of death more explicitly. His macabre series is identified as Death and Disaster.
Paradoxically the most shocking image does not display death but only its instrument. In 1964 Warhol prepares a screen from a photo of the Sing Sing electric chair, in the middle of its big empty room, without any human presence. He makes 32 monochrome paintings 56 x 71 cm, each one in another color, conceived to be exhibited together. The chilling blue version was sold for $ 11.6M by Christie's on November 10, 2015.
All the Warhol chairs were painted after the decommissioning of the Sing Sing instrument, decided in 1963. Indeed other similar chairs continued to function in the world, but it will never be clear whether Warhol had an activist intent behind this morbid theme.
In 1967 Warhol prepares for the next year a new exhibition that will focus on the two extreme themes, life and death, symbolized by the flowers and by the electric chair. He executes in 1967 and 1968 14 large acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas 137 x 188 cm of the electric chair based on an enlargement of the central part of the original image.
Now the activist intention if any has gone. This set is a study of the emotional effects of colors, comparable to the variation from one image to another in the set of Marilyn prints executed in the same year. Geldzahler is delighted.
One of them is a much blurring composition. The background consists of three oblique stripes that symbolize life : blue of the sky, green of the grass, pink of the flesh. The chair is printed twice, in army green and dark purple, more threatening by their very low contrast with the background.
This Big Electric Chair was sold for $ 20.4M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2014 and for $ 19M by Christie's on November 13, 2019, lot 20 B.
In June 1968 the assassination attempt on Warhol by Valerie Solanas is a real encounter between the artist and death.
Paradoxically the most shocking image does not display death but only its instrument. In 1964 Warhol prepares a screen from a photo of the Sing Sing electric chair, in the middle of its big empty room, without any human presence. He makes 32 monochrome paintings 56 x 71 cm, each one in another color, conceived to be exhibited together. The chilling blue version was sold for $ 11.6M by Christie's on November 10, 2015.
All the Warhol chairs were painted after the decommissioning of the Sing Sing instrument, decided in 1963. Indeed other similar chairs continued to function in the world, but it will never be clear whether Warhol had an activist intent behind this morbid theme.
In 1967 Warhol prepares for the next year a new exhibition that will focus on the two extreme themes, life and death, symbolized by the flowers and by the electric chair. He executes in 1967 and 1968 14 large acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas 137 x 188 cm of the electric chair based on an enlargement of the central part of the original image.
Now the activist intention if any has gone. This set is a study of the emotional effects of colors, comparable to the variation from one image to another in the set of Marilyn prints executed in the same year. Geldzahler is delighted.
One of them is a much blurring composition. The background consists of three oblique stripes that symbolize life : blue of the sky, green of the grass, pink of the flesh. The chair is printed twice, in army green and dark purple, more threatening by their very low contrast with the background.
This Big Electric Chair was sold for $ 20.4M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2014 and for $ 19M by Christie's on November 13, 2019, lot 20 B.
In June 1968 the assassination attempt on Warhol by Valerie Solanas is a real encounter between the artist and death.
1972 Mao
Intro
Andy Warhol was not active in politics but his Democratic and popular sympathies are known. The first idol of his artistic career, Marilyn, was close to Kennedy. He multiplies her image to offer it posthumously to a modern mystic idolatry.
After 1964 Warhol significantly reduces his activity as a painter to try to become an idol for others through show business and movies. It was not his best idea. His trend toward the underground went against such a purpose and his temperament certainly did not favor his acceptance in the jet set.
Pushed by Bischofberger, Warhol is back to painting in 1972. He needs a new star able to match Marilyn. He hesitates on Einstein and chooses Mao.
Mao by Warhol is an American political message. Nixon announced his candidacy for a presidential re-election just before his trip to China. When shaking hands with Mao, Nixon appears as a statesman of the same importance as the Great Helmsman. This does not please Warhol. He leaves the figure of the U.S. President totally away from his new project.
As for Marilyn, Warhol chooses an ancient image. Unlike Marilyn, Mao's image was universally known before Warhol reused it : held up since 1949 by millions of Chinese, it illustrates the Little Red Book. It is a thorn to Nixon : watch this undemocratic idol that Americans are now invited to admire. In five sizes and all colors, the Maos of Warhol, in their official dignity, do not express any feeling.
Warhol is still working in screen print and acrylic, but his technique has changed. The brushstroke is visible, contributing to the energy of the artwork. Again, Warhol was wrong. This new process is taking too long and his art is gradually less cared when he extends the series.
Although his Mao's are a pastiche of the official image and may therefore hit the Chinese sensibilities, Warhol is in this series a rather impartial observer of the Cultural Revolution, of Soviet style imaging, of the almost octogenarian face of the Great Helmsman and of the inevitable Mao collar designed as a challenge of the proletarians against the Western tie.
After 1964 Warhol significantly reduces his activity as a painter to try to become an idol for others through show business and movies. It was not his best idea. His trend toward the underground went against such a purpose and his temperament certainly did not favor his acceptance in the jet set.
Pushed by Bischofberger, Warhol is back to painting in 1972. He needs a new star able to match Marilyn. He hesitates on Einstein and chooses Mao.
Mao by Warhol is an American political message. Nixon announced his candidacy for a presidential re-election just before his trip to China. When shaking hands with Mao, Nixon appears as a statesman of the same importance as the Great Helmsman. This does not please Warhol. He leaves the figure of the U.S. President totally away from his new project.
As for Marilyn, Warhol chooses an ancient image. Unlike Marilyn, Mao's image was universally known before Warhol reused it : held up since 1949 by millions of Chinese, it illustrates the Little Red Book. It is a thorn to Nixon : watch this undemocratic idol that Americans are now invited to admire. In five sizes and all colors, the Maos of Warhol, in their official dignity, do not express any feeling.
Warhol is still working in screen print and acrylic, but his technique has changed. The brushstroke is visible, contributing to the energy of the artwork. Again, Warhol was wrong. This new process is taking too long and his art is gradually less cared when he extends the series.
Although his Mao's are a pastiche of the official image and may therefore hit the Chinese sensibilities, Warhol is in this series a rather impartial observer of the Cultural Revolution, of Soviet style imaging, of the almost octogenarian face of the Great Helmsman and of the inevitable Mao collar designed as a challenge of the proletarians against the Western tie.
1
2015 SOLD for $ 48M by Sotheby's
The first Mao by Warhol, achieved without the help of an assistant, is indeed the best painting in that theme. This picture 208 x 145 cm was sold for $ 48M by Sotheby's on November 11, 2015, lot 11 (11-11-11).
Grok thought :
Quote
Sotheby's @Sothebys Nov 12, 2015
#AuctionUpdate: An early iteration from #Warhol's ‘Mao’ series fetches $47.5m #SothebysContemporary
Grok thought :
Quote
Sotheby's @Sothebys Nov 12, 2015
#AuctionUpdate: An early iteration from #Warhol's ‘Mao’ series fetches $47.5m #SothebysContemporary
- Sotheby's 2015 post highlights the $47.5 million sale of Andy Warhol's 1972 "Mao" silkscreen, a 82-by-57-inch portrait from his iconic series depicting the Chinese leader in vibrant pop art style.
- Created amid U.S.-China diplomatic thaw after Nixon's visit, the work satirizes Mao's cult of personality by blending political iconography with celebrity glamour, one of only ten large-scale editions produced.
- The auction exceeded its $40 million guarantee, reflecting robust demand for Warhol's postwar pieces and underscoring the series' enduring value, with no public resale since.
2
2017 SOLD for $ 32.4M by Sotheby's
Anxious since the almost successful murder attempt against him in 1968, Andy Warhol changed his life : he is now a recluse and hardly works anymore. Art dealers are impatient. In 1972 Bischofberger suggests to him to find a new iconic theme.
Andy chooses the only picture in the world that has been distributed in hundreds of millions of copies : the official three-color portrait of Mao Zedong which among other uses illustrates the Little Red Book. Mao succeeded for the popular imagery the unlimited multiplication that Andy had dreamed with his Marilyn's. The historic handshake between Mao and Nixon early in the same year may be just a coincidence.
Andy painted eleven similar Mao's in 1972, 208 cm high with a slightly variable width. The lines and the proportions in relation to the frame are comparable to the official image with the exception of the shadow that invades the left cheek and the chin. The artist changed the color of the tunic and of the background.
On November 16, 2017, Sotheby's sold for $ 32.4M a Mao 208 x 152 cm, lot 45.
A Mao 208 x 155 cm painted in 1972 was sold for $ 17.4M by Christie's on November 15, 2006, lot 16.
Andy chooses the only picture in the world that has been distributed in hundreds of millions of copies : the official three-color portrait of Mao Zedong which among other uses illustrates the Little Red Book. Mao succeeded for the popular imagery the unlimited multiplication that Andy had dreamed with his Marilyn's. The historic handshake between Mao and Nixon early in the same year may be just a coincidence.
Andy painted eleven similar Mao's in 1972, 208 cm high with a slightly variable width. The lines and the proportions in relation to the frame are comparable to the official image with the exception of the shadow that invades the left cheek and the chin. The artist changed the color of the tunic and of the background.
On November 16, 2017, Sotheby's sold for $ 32.4M a Mao 208 x 152 cm, lot 45.
A Mao 208 x 155 cm painted in 1972 was sold for $ 17.4M by Christie's on November 15, 2006, lot 16.
1976 Skull
2022 SOLD for $ 24M by Christie's
Obsessed with death, Warhol managed to modernize in his signature technique the old theme of the vanities.
In 1976 he went to be busy with a skull found by him in a flea market in Paris, complete with two full rows of teeth. His photographer assistant endeavored to obtain the most dramatic effect, with the jaws open in an appealing laugh and the piece posed on the floor.
A large size painting 183 x 203 cm in acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas was sold for $ 24M by Christie's on May 12, 2022, lot 24C. This psychedelic example displays a highly disturbing bright blue color of the skull and a weird butter yellow shadow.
In the same technique, a pink skull on a sky blue floor on canvas 38 x 48 cm was sold for £ 700K by Phillips on June 27, 2013, lot 13.
A chromolithography 40 x 34 cm edited in 125 copies was gathering the same image in three rows of two columns in various colors.
These images may have influenced the skull paintings made by Basquiat in 1982, the year when he first met Warhol. The series of jawless skulls by Richter was executed in 1983.
In 1976 he went to be busy with a skull found by him in a flea market in Paris, complete with two full rows of teeth. His photographer assistant endeavored to obtain the most dramatic effect, with the jaws open in an appealing laugh and the piece posed on the floor.
A large size painting 183 x 203 cm in acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas was sold for $ 24M by Christie's on May 12, 2022, lot 24C. This psychedelic example displays a highly disturbing bright blue color of the skull and a weird butter yellow shadow.
In the same technique, a pink skull on a sky blue floor on canvas 38 x 48 cm was sold for £ 700K by Phillips on June 27, 2013, lot 13.
A chromolithography 40 x 34 cm edited in 125 copies was gathering the same image in three rows of two columns in various colors.
These images may have influenced the skull paintings made by Basquiat in 1982, the year when he first met Warhol. The series of jawless skulls by Richter was executed in 1983.
1982 Basquiat
2021 SOLD for $ 40M by Christie's
Bruno Bischofberger was from 1968 the main dealer of the art of Andy Warhol whom he influenced in developing new themes. He knew also to capture the confidence of Jean-Michel Basquiat who left for him the gallery of Annina Nosei in the summer of 1982.
In order to keep in touch with the new trends including the street culture, Warhol was inviting Bischofberger to bring young artists to meet him at The Factory. Andy was not so sure of the artistic skills of Jean-Michel who was a newcomer at that time. They met on October 4, 1982. The encounter was told by Bischofberger and by Warhol.
The older artist took his Polaroid and a few photos were shot. Jean-Michel left at lunch time. One hour and a half later, an assistant came back with their double portrait 150 x 150 cm. Andy said : "He is faster than me". A new friendship was born. Their collaboration in four hand paintings will begin one year later, also through Bischofberger's influence.
Andy managed to paint three portraits of his new friend from one of the photos. He knew that Jean-Michel admired the metallized effect used by Andy two decades earlier in his Gold Marilyn, in the Ferus series of Elvis, in the Silver Liz and in a portrait of Jackie Kennedy.
Basquiat by Warhol, metallic pigment, acrylic, silkscreen ink and piss on canvas 102 x 102 cm painted in 1982, was sold for $ 40M by Christie's on November 11, 2021, lot 32C.
The special oxidation technique used by Warhol created a pattern of big stains on the larger than life face of Basquiat, providing a surreal effect that highlighted the wild crown-shaped hair and the slightly strabismic gaze of the unconventional and uncompromising young rebel.
The other two examples respectively remain in the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and in the Basquiat estate.
Response by Grok :
Quote
Christie's @ChristiesInc Nov 12, 2021
#AuctionUpdate: The Icon's Icon. 'Jean-Michel Basquiat' by Andy Warhol (1928-1987) fetched $40,091,500 at auction. The icon's icon, the work indexes the special bond between two artists.
In order to keep in touch with the new trends including the street culture, Warhol was inviting Bischofberger to bring young artists to meet him at The Factory. Andy was not so sure of the artistic skills of Jean-Michel who was a newcomer at that time. They met on October 4, 1982. The encounter was told by Bischofberger and by Warhol.
The older artist took his Polaroid and a few photos were shot. Jean-Michel left at lunch time. One hour and a half later, an assistant came back with their double portrait 150 x 150 cm. Andy said : "He is faster than me". A new friendship was born. Their collaboration in four hand paintings will begin one year later, also through Bischofberger's influence.
Andy managed to paint three portraits of his new friend from one of the photos. He knew that Jean-Michel admired the metallized effect used by Andy two decades earlier in his Gold Marilyn, in the Ferus series of Elvis, in the Silver Liz and in a portrait of Jackie Kennedy.
Basquiat by Warhol, metallic pigment, acrylic, silkscreen ink and piss on canvas 102 x 102 cm painted in 1982, was sold for $ 40M by Christie's on November 11, 2021, lot 32C.
The special oxidation technique used by Warhol created a pattern of big stains on the larger than life face of Basquiat, providing a surreal effect that highlighted the wild crown-shaped hair and the slightly strabismic gaze of the unconventional and uncompromising young rebel.
The other two examples respectively remain in the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and in the Basquiat estate.
Response by Grok :
Quote
Christie's @ChristiesInc Nov 12, 2021
#AuctionUpdate: The Icon's Icon. 'Jean-Michel Basquiat' by Andy Warhol (1928-1987) fetched $40,091,500 at auction. The icon's icon, the work indexes the special bond between two artists.
- The artwork "Jean-Michel Basquiat" by Andy Warhol, sold for $40,091,500 at Christie's in 2021, reflects a rare collaboration between two artists who shaped the 1980s art scene, with Basquiat’s neo-expressionist style merging with Warhol’s pop art, a fusion that defied traditional art market expectations at the time.
- This sale highlights a significant moment in art market history, as Basquiat, who died in 1988 at age 27, saw his works skyrocket in value posthumously, with a 2021 study from the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report noting a 1,200% increase in his auction prices since 2000, driven by demand from new collectors in Asia and the Middle East.
- The piece’s creation in 1982 coincided with a period of cultural exchange between Warhol and Basquiat, including their joint exhibitions, which challenged racial stereotypes in art, a move supported by emerging research from the Journal of Cultural Economics (2023) showing how such collaborations can reshape market perceptions of minority artists.
1986 Sixty Last Suppers
2017 SOLD for $ 61M by Christie's
Shy and famous at the same time, Andy Warhol was discussing with friends throughout his career before selecting his most popular themes. The story of the dollar at the very beginning of his realization of multiples is typical. In 1985 the gallery owner Alexander Iolas suggests a new theme of interpretations of Leonardo's Last Supper to be exhibited in Milan across the street from the permanent location of the original.
Warhol is working hard on this project that had everything to seduce him. For devout Catholics the Last Supper is the founding act of the mystical Christianity by which Christ announces his death and resurrection and especially his sharing with the whole mankind.
Warhol had himself something like a resurrection in 1968 when his heart restarted after the assassination attempt. He felt that he was going to die during the surgical operation of his gallbladder which was inevitable but was constantly postponed by him. This intuition was right.
In that impulse Warhol realized about 100 variations around Leonardo's Last Supper in 1986 while about 20 were enough for the Milan exhibition. He did not take as model the original painting but two poor photographs of old copies. This final project brilliantly terminates his own pop art revolution by which the visual message and the ability to copy and multiply it are more important than the skill even when the artist is Leonardo himself.
This series includes a few monumental pieces in a perfect repetition that reaches the infinite. Christ 112 times in yellow which is a reproduction of a detail measures 203 x 1069 cm. This artwork was sold for $ 9.5M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2008.
On November 15, 2017, Christie's sold for $ 61M a multiplication of the entire picture, Sixty Last Suppers, lot 13 B. This 295 x 998 cm canvas which is undoubtedly the largest in the series and perhaps even in his entire career in terms of surface was not included in the Milan exhibition. Please watch the video shared by Christie's.
Asking Grok to define the importance of this artwork in Warhol's career.
Grok thought :
Andy Warhol's "Sixty Last Suppers" (1986) is a monumental silkscreened canvas measuring over 32 feet in length, featuring 60 repeated black-and-white images of Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" arranged in a 6-by-10 grid. Derived from a cheap commercial reproduction of a 19th-century engraving rather than the original fresco, the work was painted using synthetic polymer and silkscreen ink, emphasizing Warhol's signature technique of mechanical repetition with subtle variations in tone and shadow that evoke film strips or stacked television screens. This specific piece, identified as lot 13B, was sold at Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York on November 15, 2017, for $60,875,000, marking one of the highest prices for a Warhol work at the time.
In the context of Warhol's career, "Sixty Last Suppers" holds profound importance as the crowning achievement of his final major series, created in the year before his unexpected death from complications following gallbladder surgery in February 1987. Commissioned in 1985 by gallerist Alexandre Iolas for an exhibition in Milan directly across from Leonardo's original fresco at Santa Maria delle Grazie, it was part of a burst of over 100 variations on "The Last Supper" that Warhol produced, blending his Pop Art roots with deeply personal themes of religion, mortality, and redemption. This series represented a reflective turn in his later work, where religious iconography became more prominent amid his confrontation with aging and death—echoing his devout Catholic upbringing in Pittsburgh, where reproductions of "The Last Supper" adorned his family's kitchen and his mother's Bible, and his regular church attendance despite his public persona as a secular Pop icon.
The artwork exemplifies Warhol's lifelong interrogation of originality versus reproduction, a hallmark of his oeuvre since the 1960s with series like the Campbell's Soup Cans and Marilyn Monroe portraits. By sourcing from a mass-produced copy of a copy, Warhol underscored the infinite reproducibility of cultural icons, transforming a sacred Renaissance masterpiece into a commodified, modern artifact that blurs the lines between high art, mass media, and consumerism—much like how he elevated everyday advertisements into fine art without irony or cynicism. The repetitive grid format builds on his earlier explorations of seriality (e.g., in disaster-themed works like car crashes and electric chairs), creating a numbing effect akin to media overload while implying endless extension beyond the canvas, evoking philosophical ideas of eternal recurrence and the "unpresentable" infinite.
Critically, it serves as a culmination of Warhol's engagement with mortality, a theme that intensified after his near-fatal shooting in 1968 and permeated his 1970s and 1980s output through motifs like skulls, guns, and self-portraits grappling with life and death. In "Sixty Last Suppers," the biblical scene of Christ's betrayal and impending sacrifice symbolizes communion, forgiveness, and harmony, offering a poignant farewell that injects fresh relevance into religious art for a secular age—art historian Arthur Danto described Warhol as revitalizing such icons, while others note its hidden spiritual depth beneath his "machine-like" aesthetic. The Milan exhibition drew nearly 30,000 visitors, highlighting its public resonance and solidifying Warhol's legacy as a bridge between historical tradition and contemporary culture. Overall, this piece not only marks the end of Warhol's prolific output but also synthesizes his transformative impact on art, challenging viewers to reconsider the sacred in the profane.
Warhol is working hard on this project that had everything to seduce him. For devout Catholics the Last Supper is the founding act of the mystical Christianity by which Christ announces his death and resurrection and especially his sharing with the whole mankind.
Warhol had himself something like a resurrection in 1968 when his heart restarted after the assassination attempt. He felt that he was going to die during the surgical operation of his gallbladder which was inevitable but was constantly postponed by him. This intuition was right.
In that impulse Warhol realized about 100 variations around Leonardo's Last Supper in 1986 while about 20 were enough for the Milan exhibition. He did not take as model the original painting but two poor photographs of old copies. This final project brilliantly terminates his own pop art revolution by which the visual message and the ability to copy and multiply it are more important than the skill even when the artist is Leonardo himself.
This series includes a few monumental pieces in a perfect repetition that reaches the infinite. Christ 112 times in yellow which is a reproduction of a detail measures 203 x 1069 cm. This artwork was sold for $ 9.5M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2008.
On November 15, 2017, Christie's sold for $ 61M a multiplication of the entire picture, Sixty Last Suppers, lot 13 B. This 295 x 998 cm canvas which is undoubtedly the largest in the series and perhaps even in his entire career in terms of surface was not included in the Milan exhibition. Please watch the video shared by Christie's.
Asking Grok to define the importance of this artwork in Warhol's career.
Grok thought :
Andy Warhol's "Sixty Last Suppers" (1986) is a monumental silkscreened canvas measuring over 32 feet in length, featuring 60 repeated black-and-white images of Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" arranged in a 6-by-10 grid. Derived from a cheap commercial reproduction of a 19th-century engraving rather than the original fresco, the work was painted using synthetic polymer and silkscreen ink, emphasizing Warhol's signature technique of mechanical repetition with subtle variations in tone and shadow that evoke film strips or stacked television screens. This specific piece, identified as lot 13B, was sold at Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York on November 15, 2017, for $60,875,000, marking one of the highest prices for a Warhol work at the time.
In the context of Warhol's career, "Sixty Last Suppers" holds profound importance as the crowning achievement of his final major series, created in the year before his unexpected death from complications following gallbladder surgery in February 1987. Commissioned in 1985 by gallerist Alexandre Iolas for an exhibition in Milan directly across from Leonardo's original fresco at Santa Maria delle Grazie, it was part of a burst of over 100 variations on "The Last Supper" that Warhol produced, blending his Pop Art roots with deeply personal themes of religion, mortality, and redemption. This series represented a reflective turn in his later work, where religious iconography became more prominent amid his confrontation with aging and death—echoing his devout Catholic upbringing in Pittsburgh, where reproductions of "The Last Supper" adorned his family's kitchen and his mother's Bible, and his regular church attendance despite his public persona as a secular Pop icon.
The artwork exemplifies Warhol's lifelong interrogation of originality versus reproduction, a hallmark of his oeuvre since the 1960s with series like the Campbell's Soup Cans and Marilyn Monroe portraits. By sourcing from a mass-produced copy of a copy, Warhol underscored the infinite reproducibility of cultural icons, transforming a sacred Renaissance masterpiece into a commodified, modern artifact that blurs the lines between high art, mass media, and consumerism—much like how he elevated everyday advertisements into fine art without irony or cynicism. The repetitive grid format builds on his earlier explorations of seriality (e.g., in disaster-themed works like car crashes and electric chairs), creating a numbing effect akin to media overload while implying endless extension beyond the canvas, evoking philosophical ideas of eternal recurrence and the "unpresentable" infinite.
Critically, it serves as a culmination of Warhol's engagement with mortality, a theme that intensified after his near-fatal shooting in 1968 and permeated his 1970s and 1980s output through motifs like skulls, guns, and self-portraits grappling with life and death. In "Sixty Last Suppers," the biblical scene of Christ's betrayal and impending sacrifice symbolizes communion, forgiveness, and harmony, offering a poignant farewell that injects fresh relevance into religious art for a secular age—art historian Arthur Danto described Warhol as revitalizing such icons, while others note its hidden spiritual depth beneath his "machine-like" aesthetic. The Milan exhibition drew nearly 30,000 visitors, highlighting its public resonance and solidifying Warhol's legacy as a bridge between historical tradition and contemporary culture. Overall, this piece not only marks the end of Warhol's prolific output but also synthesizes his transformative impact on art, challenging viewers to reconsider the sacred in the profane.
1986 Fright Wig
Intro
Andy Warhol was a devout Catholic. His multiplication of identical pictures of Marilyn throughout his career and of Mao in 1972 and 1973 may be interpreted as an attempt to have some of his images becoming as recognizable as Christ on the cross.
In the 1960s Andy also processed his self-portraits as a shy man half hidden in the shadow to observe the world.
His mystical preaching restarts in 1986 with his remakes of Leonardo's Last Supper, in whole or limited to details. He gets an intuition that the exemplary character that he has long sought in the modern world is indeed himself in the like of a mad man. Warhol is no longer human, he is being transformed by himself into a half-god of contemporary art.
He is already 58 years old and his face is aging. He greatly exaggerates his physical decline with a shaggy wig, his head cut under the chin, haggard eyes and an open mouth that are turning his head into a hollowed mask on a black background. The lines of the face are wasted as if they announced the next transformation of the artist into a skeleton.
This unconventional disembodied head offsets the expectations of well-thinking people in the same power as, many years before, the famous photo of Einstein sticking out his tongue.
Reusing the technique of his early masterpieces he paints this unique view in acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas by multiplying sizes and colors. The largest format in the Fright Wig series is 270 x 270 cm, used in seven canvases.
Andy also made multi-colored psychedelic pictures from the same original photo. One of them, 204 x 204 cm, displays a bright yellow face half canceled by floating scraps of a dull green and blue wrap, like in a apotheosis from life to death. It was sold for $ 18.7M by Sotheby's on May 16, 2022, lot 12. The psychedelic self portrait from the Fischer Landau collection, in the same size as the example above, was sold for $ 18M by Sotheby's on November 8, 2023, lot 14.
Andy Warhol died unexpectedly in February 1987, seven months after the exhibition of that ultimate premonitory series of selfies at the Anthony d'Offay gallery in London.
In the 1960s Andy also processed his self-portraits as a shy man half hidden in the shadow to observe the world.
His mystical preaching restarts in 1986 with his remakes of Leonardo's Last Supper, in whole or limited to details. He gets an intuition that the exemplary character that he has long sought in the modern world is indeed himself in the like of a mad man. Warhol is no longer human, he is being transformed by himself into a half-god of contemporary art.
He is already 58 years old and his face is aging. He greatly exaggerates his physical decline with a shaggy wig, his head cut under the chin, haggard eyes and an open mouth that are turning his head into a hollowed mask on a black background. The lines of the face are wasted as if they announced the next transformation of the artist into a skeleton.
This unconventional disembodied head offsets the expectations of well-thinking people in the same power as, many years before, the famous photo of Einstein sticking out his tongue.
Reusing the technique of his early masterpieces he paints this unique view in acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas by multiplying sizes and colors. The largest format in the Fright Wig series is 270 x 270 cm, used in seven canvases.
Andy also made multi-colored psychedelic pictures from the same original photo. One of them, 204 x 204 cm, displays a bright yellow face half canceled by floating scraps of a dull green and blue wrap, like in a apotheosis from life to death. It was sold for $ 18.7M by Sotheby's on May 16, 2022, lot 12. The psychedelic self portrait from the Fischer Landau collection, in the same size as the example above, was sold for $ 18M by Sotheby's on November 8, 2023, lot 14.
Andy Warhol died unexpectedly in February 1987, seven months after the exhibition of that ultimate premonitory series of selfies at the Anthony d'Offay gallery in London.
1
Purple
2010 SOLD for $ 32.5M by Sotheby's
Five paintings in color were executed simultaneously in the largest format from the series, 270 x 270 cm, showing the same image respectively in green, blue, purple, yellow and red.
The purple painting was sold for $ 32.5M from a lower estimate of $ 10M by Sotheby's on May 12, 2010. Its color is sinister and mesmerizing. The press release and image of the lot are shared by AuctionPublicity.
The purple painting was sold for $ 32.5M from a lower estimate of $ 10M by Sotheby's on May 12, 2010. Its color is sinister and mesmerizing. The press release and image of the lot are shared by AuctionPublicity.
2
Red
2011 SOLD for $ 27.5M by Christie's
The sale of the disturbing purple version 270 x 270 cm by Sotheby's in 2010 was a revelation. Estimated $ 10M, this work was sold for $ 32.5M. The pre-sale press release indicated that only one other version was still in private hands.
The terrible red Warhol, in same size, was sold for $ 27.5M by Christie's on May 11, 2011.
The terrible red Warhol, in same size, was sold for $ 27.5M by Christie's on May 11, 2011.
3
Set of Six Small Size
2014 SOLD for $ 30M by Sotheby's
Andy prepared the Fright Wig seriec in various sizes and colors from a single image, as he had done before for his series of celebrities and for the flowers. For that ultimate series, the smallest versions were intended to be kept in a sequence of hanging strictly defined by the artist.
A set of six acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas 56 x 56 cm was sold for $ 30M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2014, lot 23. It had been illustrated by Sotheby's in a pre sale video. Still complete from its original configuration it was sold for £ 22.6M by Christie's on March 6, 2018, lot 9.
A set of three mid-size 102 x 102 cm each was sold for £ 11.5M by Sotheby's on February 27, 2008.
A set of six acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas 56 x 56 cm was sold for $ 30M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2014, lot 23. It had been illustrated by Sotheby's in a pre sale video. Still complete from its original configuration it was sold for £ 22.6M by Christie's on March 6, 2018, lot 9.
A set of three mid-size 102 x 102 cm each was sold for £ 11.5M by Sotheby's on February 27, 2008.
4
White
2016 SOLD for $ 24.4M by Sotheby's
On November 17, 2016, Sotheby's sold for $ 24.4M a white version 203 x 193 cm of the 1986 self portrait, lot 38.
In 1986 black and white imaging had fallen into an obsolete past and this white figure cannot have the same cinematographic meaning as a previous Silver Liz. The lack of colors keeps the sharpness of details of the screen printing in a high artistic achievement : it is undoubtedly one of the scarier versions of this famous image.
In 1986 black and white imaging had fallen into an obsolete past and this white figure cannot have the same cinematographic meaning as a previous Silver Liz. The lack of colors keeps the sharpness of details of the screen printing in a high artistic achievement : it is undoubtedly one of the scarier versions of this famous image.
