The electric chair in Sing Sing enters his iconography on the following year in the form of copies of a photo published in a magazine in 1953 when this instrument was glorified for its role in the execution of the Rosenbergs. The chair is unoccupied in the middle of a large empty room. The only element associated with some human activity is a terrible sign requiring the SILENCE. The chair killed 614 people from 1891 to 1963.
In 1964, Andy is preparing a series of 32 Little Electric Chairs 56 x 71 cm to cover a wall in an exhibition at Toronto in March 1965. A unique screened image is used with different acrylic colors, more or less creepy.
In a chilling blue, one of them was sold for $ 11.6M including premium by Christie's on November 10, 2015. A chair in a macabre yellow was sold for $ 10.5M including premium by Christie's on May 12, 2014.
The silver paint gives an effect altogether impersonal and bright that questions the validity of the original publication of this image and the attraction of the public for the morbid. This interesting variant is estimated £ 3.5M for sale by Sotheby's in London on February 10, lot 14.
unsold
Aftershock: Andy #Warhol and the Electric Chair https://t.co/55L7iwgSWq pic.twitter.com/YQXiXbBNDJ
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) January 29, 2016