Warhol in 1962
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See also : Warhol USA by Warhol Celebrities by Warhol
Chronology : 1962
See also : Warhol USA by Warhol Celebrities by Warhol
Chronology : 1962
Special Report
Warhol's Commercial Illustration Roots
Andy Warhol (born Andrew Warhola, 1928–1987) began his career as a highly successful commercial illustrator in New York City in the 1950s, long before becoming the iconic Pop artist. This formative decade shaped his visual language, themes of consumerism and celebrity, and even his later return to advertising imagery in works like the Ads portfolio (1985).
Education and Move to New York
Warhol studied pictorial design (commercial art) at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon) in Pittsburgh, graduating with a BFA in 1949. There, he developed his signature blotted-line technique—a simple monoprinting method involving inking a drawing and pressing another sheet of paper onto it for a soft, imperfect, duplicated line with a hand-drawn yet reproducible quality.
He moved to New York immediately after graduation, dropping the “a” from his surname. Within days, he landed his first assignment: shoe illustrations for Glamour magazine’s “Success is a Job in New York” feature, ironically depicting shoes on a ladder of success.
Key Commercial Work and Clients
Warhol quickly became one of the most sought-after illustrators of the era, winning multiple Art Directors Club awards. His clients included:
Other motifs included cats, butterflies, cherubs, food, and elegant figures—often whimsical, decorative, and subtly queer-coded (intimate drawings of young men). He collaborated with his mother Julia on lettering and produced self-published artist’s books as gifts.
Techniques and Style
Transition to Fine Art and Lasting Influence
By the late 1950s, Warhol earned enough for a Manhattan townhouse but sought recognition beyond commercial work. Around 1960–1962, he transitioned, experimenting with consumer products (Campbell’s Soup, Coke) drawn from the ad world he knew intimately. Early Pop works often appropriated newspaper/magazine imagery.
He famously said, “I’m still a commercial artist. I was always a commercial artist.” His entire oeuvre blurred art and commerce—celebrating yet critiquing consumer culture, branding, and desire.
Exhibitions like Adman: Warhol Before Pop (2018) highlight how his commercial sensibility—appropriation, repetition, celebrity ties, and mass-media engagement—formed the foundation of Pop Art.
Warhol’s roots made him uniquely positioned to elevate everyday advertising into high art, turning the ephemeral language of commerce into modern icons. This commercial foundation was not a detour but the core of his genius.
Education and Move to New York
Warhol studied pictorial design (commercial art) at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon) in Pittsburgh, graduating with a BFA in 1949. There, he developed his signature blotted-line technique—a simple monoprinting method involving inking a drawing and pressing another sheet of paper onto it for a soft, imperfect, duplicated line with a hand-drawn yet reproducible quality.
He moved to New York immediately after graduation, dropping the “a” from his surname. Within days, he landed his first assignment: shoe illustrations for Glamour magazine’s “Success is a Job in New York” feature, ironically depicting shoes on a ladder of success.
Key Commercial Work and Clients
Warhol quickly became one of the most sought-after illustrators of the era, winning multiple Art Directors Club awards. His clients included:
- Fashion and magazines: Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, Mademoiselle.
- Retail and luxury: I. Miller Shoes (his biggest client), Tiffany & Co., Bonwit Teller, Bergdorf Goodman.
- Other: Columbia Records (album covers), department stores.
Other motifs included cats, butterflies, cherubs, food, and elegant figures—often whimsical, decorative, and subtly queer-coded (intimate drawings of young men). He collaborated with his mother Julia on lettering and produced self-published artist’s books as gifts.
Techniques and Style
- Blotted-line: Core method—loose, expressive, anti-perfectionist lines that stood out against rising photography in ads. Often combined with watercolor, gold leaf, or collage for opulence.
- Witty and creative over technical polish: He privileged drawing and personality in an industry shifting to photos.
- Speed and variation: The technique allowed quick multiples for clients.
Transition to Fine Art and Lasting Influence
By the late 1950s, Warhol earned enough for a Manhattan townhouse but sought recognition beyond commercial work. Around 1960–1962, he transitioned, experimenting with consumer products (Campbell’s Soup, Coke) drawn from the ad world he knew intimately. Early Pop works often appropriated newspaper/magazine imagery.
He famously said, “I’m still a commercial artist. I was always a commercial artist.” His entire oeuvre blurred art and commerce—celebrating yet critiquing consumer culture, branding, and desire.
Exhibitions like Adman: Warhol Before Pop (2018) highlight how his commercial sensibility—appropriation, repetition, celebrity ties, and mass-media engagement—formed the foundation of Pop Art.
Warhol’s roots made him uniquely positioned to elevate everyday advertising into high art, turning the ephemeral language of commerce into modern icons. This commercial foundation was not a detour but the core of his genius.
Special Report
1962 breakthrough
1962 is the year of the first exhibitions dedicated to Warhol in Los Angeles and New York. Suddenly, from nowhere, appeared the seminal Warholian themes of contemporary art: the Campbell's soup, Marilyn, the dollar.
Warhol's contribution is to introduce in art such popular images that are instantly recognizable by everyone, and yet are paintings. Doing it he actually created current art, or still better the art of the current world.
He operated at all scales the fruitful idea of multiples, for which he is helped by the silkscreen printing technique in two complementary ways: separate similar works with variations of colors, and juxtaposition of identical patterns on the same work.
1962 was a pivotal year for Andy Warhol, marking his transition into Pop Art and the development of serial, repetitive imagery that defined his career. He shifted from hand-painted works (often based on consumer products and advertisements) to incorporating silkscreen techniques by late in the year, enabling mass reproduction of images.
Here is a chronology of his major series and key works from 1962, based on established art historical sources (such as exhibition records, catalogues raisonnés, and timelines):
Warhol's contribution is to introduce in art such popular images that are instantly recognizable by everyone, and yet are paintings. Doing it he actually created current art, or still better the art of the current world.
He operated at all scales the fruitful idea of multiples, for which he is helped by the silkscreen printing technique in two complementary ways: separate similar works with variations of colors, and juxtaposition of identical patterns on the same work.
1962 was a pivotal year for Andy Warhol, marking his transition into Pop Art and the development of serial, repetitive imagery that defined his career. He shifted from hand-painted works (often based on consumer products and advertisements) to incorporating silkscreen techniques by late in the year, enabling mass reproduction of images.
Here is a chronology of his major series and key works from 1962, based on established art historical sources (such as exhibition records, catalogues raisonnés, and timelines):
- Early 1962 (January–March): Warhol began experimenting with serial repetition in single works and small series.
- S&H Green Stamps and Airmail Stamps series — Early monoprint/stamp-based works using carved erasers for repetition (some dated to January, though visibility in studio accounts varies).
- Paint-by-Number / Do It Yourself series — Including Do It Yourself (Sailboats), Do It Yourself (Seascape), Do It Yourself (Flowers), and others — Parodies of amateur painting kits, emphasizing consumer culture and repetition.
- Early–Mid 1962: Consumer product-focused serial paintings, hand-painted with stenciling or freehand replication.
- Campbell's Soup Cans series — Began late 1961 into 1962; the iconic set of 32 individual paintings (one for each variety) was completed by mid-1962. Larger variants include 200 Campbell's Soup Cans, 100 Campbell's Soup Cans, and Campbell's Soup Box.
- Before and After series — Nose job / beauty transformation diptychs (e.g., Before and After (4)), exploring advertising and self-improvement themes.
- Mid-1962 (around June–July): Continued consumer icons.
- Coca-Cola Bottles series — Including large works like 210 Coca-Cola Bottles (painted around June–July).
- July 9 – August 1, 1962: Warhol's breakthrough West Coast solo exhibition at Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles featured the 32 Campbell's Soup Cans displayed on shelves like grocery products — his first major public presentation of serial Pop works.
- August 5, 1962: Marilyn Monroe's death profoundly influenced Warhol.
- Marilyn Monroe series — Began shortly after (within weeks), using a 1953 Niagara publicity still. Key works include Marilyn Diptych (silkscreen and acrylic, late 1962), Gold Marilyn Monroe, Turquoise Marilyn, Blue Marilyn, and others (various color variations and scales). This marked his shift to celebrity imagery and silkscreen for repetition.
- Late 1962 (Fall–November): First New York solo Pop show at Stable Gallery (opened November 6).
- Included Marilyn works (e.g., Gold Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Diptych, flavor variants), 100 Soup Cans, 100 Coke Bottles, 100 Dollar Bills, and others.
- Dollar Bills series — Large-scale repetitions of currency.
- Disasters / death-related themes began emerging late in the year, though major series like car crashes developed into 1963.
Special Report
Original Soup Cans
Andy Warhol created the 32 Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962) between late 1961 and early/mid-1962 in his Lexington Avenue studio in New York. This series marked his pivotal transition from successful commercial illustrator to fine artist and helped define Pop Art.
Inspiration and Conceptual Origins
Warhol drew direct personal inspiration from his daily routine: he claimed to have eaten Campbell’s Soup for lunch every day for about 20 years, calling it “the same thing over and over again.” The cans represented mundane American consumerism, mass production, and familiarity—everyday objects elevated to art.
A key anecdote credits interior decorator Muriel Latow with suggesting the idea in late 1961 (for $50), urging Warhol to paint “something you see every day, like a can of soup.” Warhol also responded to the booming consumer culture of the post-war era and influences from contemporaries like Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, who incorporated everyday imagery. He photographed actual cans (some sources cite images from his friend Edward Wallowitch) as references.
The choice challenged traditional notions of originality and “high art” by mimicking commercial packaging.
Creation Process and Technique
The original 32 paintings were hand-painted, not silkscreened (a common misconception). Warhol refined his approach toward mechanical reproduction but executed these meticulously by hand.Step-by-step process:
Themes and Significance
Later Variations and Market
Warhol revisited the motif in prints:
Artistic Significance of the Process
The methodical, repetitive creation mirrored factory assembly lines and advertising. By hand-painting mass-produced items, Warhol blurred fine art and commerce, questioning authenticity, authorship, and value. The uniformity across 32 canvases (with flavor variations) echoed consumer choice within standardization. Imperfections highlighted the tension between mechanical ideal and human execution.
This series bridged his commercial past (blotted-line technique, precise rendering) and Pop future, launching his signature exploration of repetition and media imagery.The 32 Campbell’s Soup Cans remain one of the most iconic artworks of the 20th century, symbolizing Pop Art’s embrace of everyday America. Their creation process—painstaking yet aiming for impersonality—perfectly encapsulates Warhol’s philosophy: “If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There’s nothing behind it.”
The Soup Cans remain Warhol's most recognizable image, symbolizing Pop Art's embrace of the ordinary and its critique/celebration of consumerism. They continue to appear in retrospectives and define discussions of art in the age of mass media.
Warhol’s first solo exhibition ran from July 9 to August 1962 at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. It featured his groundbreaking 32 Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962), marking his shift from commercial illustration to fine art and a foundational moment for American Pop Art.
Key Details of the Exhibition
Ferus Gallery was founded in 1957 in Los Angeles by Walter Hopps (a pioneering curator) and artist Edward Kienholz. It quickly became a hub for avant-garde West Coast art, showing emerging artists like Robert Irwin, Ed Ruscha, and others associated with the “Finish Fetish”/Light and Space movements, as well as some New York figures. Irving Blum (a stylish dealer with a background in business) joined as partner around 1958–59, helping professionalize it and focus on cutting-edge contemporary work.
By 1962, Ferus had a reputation for risk-taking but operated in a conservative LA scene where Pop Art was unfamiliar and often dismissed. Blum visited Warhol’s New York studio in 1962, saw the Soup Cans in progress, and offered the show—Warhol’s first solo anywhere.
Breakthrough, Reception, and Legacy
Reception: Mixed to negative initially. Many viewers and critics ridiculed it as a joke or not “real art.” A neighboring gallery mocked it by displaying actual soup cans with a sign like “the real thing—29 cents.” Local press was largely dismissive, and attendance was low. It shocked audiences by elevating mundane consumer items.
Breakthrough for Warhol: This show launched him as a major artist, defining his serial, appropriation-based style and Pop sensibility. It moved him beyond commercial illustration into fine-art stardom, paving the way for his 1963 Elvis and Liz Taylor shows at the same gallery. The Soup Cans became synonymous with his exploration of mass production, repetition, and American consumerism (“I used to drink it... the same thing over and over again”).
Legacy for Warhol: Cemented his role in Pop Art’s rise. The series is now iconic, housed primarily at MoMA (reunited as a set). It influenced his later work (Marilyns, disasters, etc.) and global perception of 1960s art. What started as a quiet LA debut became a cultural landmark.
Legacy for the Gallery: The exhibition elevated Ferus’s profile as a forward-thinking venue that introduced New York Pop to the West Coast. Though commercially modest at the time, it helped legitimize Pop Art and contributed to LA’s emerging contemporary scene. Ferus closed in 1966 but remains legendary for launching key artists and movements. Blum’s decision to preserve the Soup Cans as a set was visionary.
Overall, the 1962 Ferus show was a quiet but seismic event: poorly received in the moment yet transformative for Warhol, Pop Art, and the gallery’s reputation as a risk-taking pioneer. It perfectly embodied the tension between commerce and art that defined Warhol’s career.
Inspiration and Conceptual Origins
Warhol drew direct personal inspiration from his daily routine: he claimed to have eaten Campbell’s Soup for lunch every day for about 20 years, calling it “the same thing over and over again.” The cans represented mundane American consumerism, mass production, and familiarity—everyday objects elevated to art.
A key anecdote credits interior decorator Muriel Latow with suggesting the idea in late 1961 (for $50), urging Warhol to paint “something you see every day, like a can of soup.” Warhol also responded to the booming consumer culture of the post-war era and influences from contemporaries like Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, who incorporated everyday imagery. He photographed actual cans (some sources cite images from his friend Edward Wallowitch) as references.
The choice challenged traditional notions of originality and “high art” by mimicking commercial packaging.
Creation Process and Technique
The original 32 paintings were hand-painted, not silkscreened (a common misconception). Warhol refined his approach toward mechanical reproduction but executed these meticulously by hand.Step-by-step process:
- Preparation: Warhol used pencil to delineate each can on individual 20 x 16-inch canvases.
- Projection and Tracing: He projected a photographic image or reference onto the canvas using a light projector (or overhead projector) to trace outlines, lettering, and details accurately for consistency across varieties.
- Painting: He applied commercial-grade acrylic paint (synthetic polymer) by hand with brushes, building layers for the red-and-white label, metallic silver top, and subtle shadows/highlights to mimic the tin’s sheen. This was labor-intensive and paradoxical—imitating mass production through handmade effort.
- Stamped Details: He used a rubber stamp for the repeating golden fleur-de-lis pattern around the bottom of each label, adding a semi-mechanical element while allowing minor imperfections (e.g., slight variations in alignment or paint splashes).
Themes and Significance
- Repetition and Seriality: The 32 varieties mirror assembly-line production and advertising uniformity. Warhol later said he ate Campbell's soup daily for 20 years, linking it to personal routine and everyday American life.
- High vs. Low Culture: By elevating a mass-produced commodity to art-gallery status, Warhol blurred boundaries between fine art and commercial imagery—questioning originality, aura (per Walter Benjamin), and value in a consumer society.
- Mechanical vs. Handmade: Though the images look identical, the canvases are hand-painted with subtle variations (e.g., hand-stamped fleur-de-lys patterns), contrasting with later silkscreen works that embraced full mechanical reproduction.
- Consumerism and American Identity: The cans symbolize post-WWII abundance, branding, and the democratization of culture—"art for the mass of the American people," as Warhol put it.
Later Variations and Market
Warhol revisited the motif in prints:
- Campbell's Soup I (1968, 10 screenprints)
- Campbell's Soup II (1969)
Artistic Significance of the Process
The methodical, repetitive creation mirrored factory assembly lines and advertising. By hand-painting mass-produced items, Warhol blurred fine art and commerce, questioning authenticity, authorship, and value. The uniformity across 32 canvases (with flavor variations) echoed consumer choice within standardization. Imperfections highlighted the tension between mechanical ideal and human execution.
This series bridged his commercial past (blotted-line technique, precise rendering) and Pop future, launching his signature exploration of repetition and media imagery.The 32 Campbell’s Soup Cans remain one of the most iconic artworks of the 20th century, symbolizing Pop Art’s embrace of everyday America. Their creation process—painstaking yet aiming for impersonality—perfectly encapsulates Warhol’s philosophy: “If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There’s nothing behind it.”
The Soup Cans remain Warhol's most recognizable image, symbolizing Pop Art's embrace of the ordinary and its critique/celebration of consumerism. They continue to appear in retrospectives and define discussions of art in the age of mass media.
Warhol’s first solo exhibition ran from July 9 to August 1962 at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. It featured his groundbreaking 32 Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962), marking his shift from commercial illustration to fine art and a foundational moment for American Pop Art.
Key Details of the Exhibition
- Works Shown: Thirty-two canvases (each 20 x 16 inches / 50.8 x 40.6 cm), one for each Campbell’s Soup variety available at the time. Hand-painted with acrylic and metallic enamel; labels varied by flavor while the overall format remained uniform. Warhol based them on actual cans, projecting and tracing the imagery.
- Installation: Irving Blum displayed them on narrow shelves along the wall, like products in a supermarket aisle, blurring art and commerce. This was Warhol’s concept of serial repetition as consumer goods.
- Warhol’s Absence: He did not attend the opening; no formal reception was held. The show was low-key.
- Sales: Modest at the time—around 5–6 sold (some to friends like Dennis Hopper) for about $100 each. Blum later bought back several to keep the set intact, eventually acquiring the full group (which he later sold to MoMA in 1996 for $15 million).
Ferus Gallery was founded in 1957 in Los Angeles by Walter Hopps (a pioneering curator) and artist Edward Kienholz. It quickly became a hub for avant-garde West Coast art, showing emerging artists like Robert Irwin, Ed Ruscha, and others associated with the “Finish Fetish”/Light and Space movements, as well as some New York figures. Irving Blum (a stylish dealer with a background in business) joined as partner around 1958–59, helping professionalize it and focus on cutting-edge contemporary work.
By 1962, Ferus had a reputation for risk-taking but operated in a conservative LA scene where Pop Art was unfamiliar and often dismissed. Blum visited Warhol’s New York studio in 1962, saw the Soup Cans in progress, and offered the show—Warhol’s first solo anywhere.
Breakthrough, Reception, and Legacy
Reception: Mixed to negative initially. Many viewers and critics ridiculed it as a joke or not “real art.” A neighboring gallery mocked it by displaying actual soup cans with a sign like “the real thing—29 cents.” Local press was largely dismissive, and attendance was low. It shocked audiences by elevating mundane consumer items.
Breakthrough for Warhol: This show launched him as a major artist, defining his serial, appropriation-based style and Pop sensibility. It moved him beyond commercial illustration into fine-art stardom, paving the way for his 1963 Elvis and Liz Taylor shows at the same gallery. The Soup Cans became synonymous with his exploration of mass production, repetition, and American consumerism (“I used to drink it... the same thing over and over again”).
Legacy for Warhol: Cemented his role in Pop Art’s rise. The series is now iconic, housed primarily at MoMA (reunited as a set). It influenced his later work (Marilyns, disasters, etc.) and global perception of 1960s art. What started as a quiet LA debut became a cultural landmark.
Legacy for the Gallery: The exhibition elevated Ferus’s profile as a forward-thinking venue that introduced New York Pop to the West Coast. Though commercially modest at the time, it helped legitimize Pop Art and contributed to LA’s emerging contemporary scene. Ferus closed in 1966 but remains legendary for launching key artists and movements. Blum’s decision to preserve the Soup Cans as a set was visionary.
Overall, the 1962 Ferus show was a quiet but seismic event: poorly received in the moment yet transformative for Warhol, Pop Art, and the gallery’s reputation as a risk-taking pioneer. It perfectly embodied the tension between commerce and art that defined Warhol’s career.
Big Campbell's Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable)
2017 SOLD for $ 27.5M by Christie's
In 1961 a still unknown Andy Warhol desired to be represented by Leo Castelli but the assistant of the boss was not convinced. Andy accepted the suggestion from a friend to execute a series of paintings featuring the Campbell's soup because it is an artifact that everybody sees everyday.
That first series will ultimately include eleven paintings in casein on linen prepared over a line drawing in graphite. The success encouraged Andy to prepare other popular themes and change to his faster technique using the silkscreen.
The Campbell's soup can, as seen by the user, plays a drama in three acts. First, it is a perfect cylinder adorned with an austere label defining its brand and its flavor selected among 32 varieties. At the end of the operation, it is a shapeless object emptied of its precious liquid, ready to be thrown without mercy into the garbage.
The intermediate act is the opening of the box. Big Campbell's Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable) was sold by Christie's for $ 27.5M on May 17, 2017, lot 58 B.
Warhol shows a can of vegetable soup with the can opener in place, ready to attack. Made in early 1962, this large size painting 183 x 132 cm is one of the most important in his prolific series of Campbell's soups.
Warhol is at that time one of the artists who want to express the real world, the real life, in the circle of Leo Castelli. Such an artwork confirms that he has already abandoned a previous intention to imitate advertising.
The first visitors to his exhibitions were amused to see a new naive. This view has proven wrong. The daily act of opening the can of soup has a complex meaning in its contradiction : it is both brutal, since it violates the integrity of the box, and ordinary and essential, because it is useless if the user cannot access the soup.
That first series will ultimately include eleven paintings in casein on linen prepared over a line drawing in graphite. The success encouraged Andy to prepare other popular themes and change to his faster technique using the silkscreen.
The Campbell's soup can, as seen by the user, plays a drama in three acts. First, it is a perfect cylinder adorned with an austere label defining its brand and its flavor selected among 32 varieties. At the end of the operation, it is a shapeless object emptied of its precious liquid, ready to be thrown without mercy into the garbage.
The intermediate act is the opening of the box. Big Campbell's Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable) was sold by Christie's for $ 27.5M on May 17, 2017, lot 58 B.
Warhol shows a can of vegetable soup with the can opener in place, ready to attack. Made in early 1962, this large size painting 183 x 132 cm is one of the most important in his prolific series of Campbell's soups.
Warhol is at that time one of the artists who want to express the real world, the real life, in the circle of Leo Castelli. Such an artwork confirms that he has already abandoned a previous intention to imitate advertising.
The first visitors to his exhibitions were amused to see a new naive. This view has proven wrong. The daily act of opening the can of soup has a complex meaning in its contradiction : it is both brutal, since it violates the integrity of the box, and ordinary and essential, because it is useless if the user cannot access the soup.
Coca-Cola (3)
2012 SOLD for $ 57M by Christie's
Hand painted pre silkscreen Coca-Cola by Warhol. Compare opus (4), sold for $ 35M by Sotheby's on November 9, 2010, lot 12 vs opus (3) sold for $ 57M by Christie's on November 12, 2013, lot 27 more expensive despite being smaller.
The two works in question are part of Andy Warhol's pivotal early 1962 series of four hand-painted, pre-silkscreen Coca-Cola bottle paintings (often referred to with opus numbers [1] through [4]). These mark a key transition in Warhol's career toward Pop Art, featuring stark, black-and-white depictions of a single Coca-Cola bottle (based on period advertisements), executed by hand in a cool, impersonal style before he adopted mechanical silkscreening for repetition and mass imagery.
Art auction prices for blue-chip works like these are driven more by factors beyond size, including:
Estimated execution dates for the two works:
Both Coca-Cola [3] (opus 3) and Coca-Cola [4] (also known as Large Coca-Cola, opus 4) are dated 1962 in standard art historical records, auction catalogues (Christie's and Sotheby's), the Warhol catalogue raisonné (The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné: Paintings and Sculpture 1961–1963), museum listings (e.g., Crystal Bridges), and scholarly sources.The series of four single-bottle Coca-Cola paintings spans late 1961 to summer 1962:
The two works in question are part of Andy Warhol's pivotal early 1962 series of four hand-painted, pre-silkscreen Coca-Cola bottle paintings (often referred to with opus numbers [1] through [4]). These mark a key transition in Warhol's career toward Pop Art, featuring stark, black-and-white depictions of a single Coca-Cola bottle (based on period advertisements), executed by hand in a cool, impersonal style before he adopted mechanical silkscreening for repetition and mass imagery.
- Opus (4) — titled Coca-Cola [4] (also called Large Coca-Cola): Sold at Sotheby's New York on November 9, 2010 (Contemporary Art Evening Auction, lot 12) for $35M.
- Medium: Acrylic, pencil, and Letraset on canvas.
- Dimensions: 81 3/4 x 56 3/4 in. (207.6 x 144.1 cm) — the largest in the series.
- It was described as the final and monumental version in the series, with some mechanical elements (Letraset for text) foreshadowing silkscreen works. Provenance included early galleries and a 1983 Christie's sale.
- Opus (3) — titled Coca-Cola [3]: Sold at Christie's New York on November 12, 2013 (Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sale, lot 27) for $57M ; estimate $40M–60M).
- Medium: Casein on cotton (or canvas in some references).
- Dimensions: 69 3/8 x 54 in. (176.2 x 137.2 cm) — noticeably smaller than opus (4).
- It was highlighted as one of the earliest and most defining in the series, with a smooth, hard-edged execution, minimal brushwork, and some pentimenti (e.g., painted-out "Standard" and "King Size" text). Provenance included Warhol's studio and collector S.I. Newhouse, Jr.
Art auction prices for blue-chip works like these are driven more by factors beyond size, including:
- Market timing and conditions: The 2010 sale occurred during a post-financial-crisis recovery phase for the art market, while 2013 saw stronger demand and higher overall prices in the contemporary sector, with ultra-high-net-worth collectors aggressively pursuing iconic Pop Art pieces. Warhol's market was heating up further by 2013.
- Provenance and ownership history: Coca-Cola [3] had strong, direct ties (from Warhol's studio to prominent collectors like S.I. Newhouse and later the Mugrabi family), which can enhance perceived prestige. It had been in a private collection for nearly two decades, adding freshness and rarity to the auction appearance.
- Historical and critical positioning: Catalogues and scholarship often position Coca-Cola [3] as a breakthrough work — one of the first truly "cool," impersonal, hard-edged single-bottle images, representing Warhol's shift away from Abstract Expressionism toward Pop's machine-like objectivity. Coca-Cola [4] is described as a slightly larger reworking or second version of [3], with minor compositional tweaks (e.g., cropping of the logo) but less as the absolute pivotal piece. Some sources note [3] as more "pure" in its hand-painted execution without added Letraset elements.
- Auction house dynamics and bidding competition: Christie's 2013 sale benefited from intense bidder interest (including major collectors), pushing it to the high end of estimates. Sotheby's 2010 sale exceeded its $20–25M estimate but didn't reach the same fever pitch relative to market growth by 2013.
- Overall Warhol market escalation: By 2013, top Warhol prices were climbing rapidly (e.g., other major works setting records), and single iconic images like these Coke bottles were seen as foundational to his oeuvre.
Estimated execution dates for the two works:
Both Coca-Cola [3] (opus 3) and Coca-Cola [4] (also known as Large Coca-Cola, opus 4) are dated 1962 in standard art historical records, auction catalogues (Christie's and Sotheby's), the Warhol catalogue raisonné (The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné: Paintings and Sculpture 1961–1963), museum listings (e.g., Crystal Bridges), and scholarly sources.The series of four single-bottle Coca-Cola paintings spans late 1961 to summer 1962:
- The first two (often referred to as [1] and [2]) are more gestural/abstract and were executed in late 1961 or early 1962.
- Coca-Cola [3] is positioned as the breakthrough "cool," hard-edged, impersonal version — painted early 1962 (likely winter/spring 1962). Auction descriptions (e.g., Christie's 2013 catalogue) describe it as painted in early 1962, marking Warhol's shift to a near-mechanical style before full silkscreen adoption.
- Coca-Cola [4] is explicitly the last in the series, described as a slightly larger reworking or second version of [3]. It was painted sometime after [3], in the summer of 1962 (per Christie's and Sotheby's catalogues, as well as references in the catalogue raisonné). This places its execution in approximately June–August 1962.
- Opus (3): Early 1962 (most likely Q1–Q2 1962).
- Opus (4): Summer 1962 (likely mid-to-late summer, as the final one before Warhol moved to repeated silkscreened bottles like Green Coca-Cola Bottles in summer 1962).
Coca-Cola (4)
2010 SOLD for $ 35M by Sotheby's
Coca-Cola (4), acrylic on canvas 208 x 144 cm, is the largest painting done on this subject in period. It was sold for $ 35M from a lower estimate of $ 20M by Sotheby's on November 9, 2010, lot 12.
Special Report
Transition from Hand Painting to Screen Art
Warhol's transition to silkscreen in 1962 marked a pivotal shift from hand-painted works to a mechanical, reproducible process that defined his mature Pop Art style and aligned with his desire to "paint like a machine."
Context and Timing
In early 1962, Warhol was still producing hand-painted Pop works, such as the Campbell's Soup Cans (hand-stenciled) and the Do It Yourself series (like the Violin discussed previously). These often used projection for outlines followed by manual filling, echoing commercial techniques but retaining a handmade quality.By mid-1962 (around March–August), he adopted silkscreening. Key early examples include:
Why Silkscreen? Influences and Motivations
How Warhol's Silkscreen Process Worked (Early 1960s)
Warhol combined hand elements with photographic reproduction:
Impact on His Career
Context and Timing
In early 1962, Warhol was still producing hand-painted Pop works, such as the Campbell's Soup Cans (hand-stenciled) and the Do It Yourself series (like the Violin discussed previously). These often used projection for outlines followed by manual filling, echoing commercial techniques but retaining a handmade quality.By mid-1962 (around March–August), he adopted silkscreening. Key early examples include:
- Gridded dollar bill paintings (from his own drawings, due to legal restrictions on reproducing currency).
- Baseball (June/July 1962), believed to be one of his first photographic silkscreens from mass-media sources.
- Marilyn Monroe works, sparked by her August 1962 death (e.g., Marilyn Diptych).
Why Silkscreen? Influences and Motivations
- Commercial Roots: Warhol's background as a commercial illustrator (shoes for I. Miller, etc.) made him comfortable with reproductive techniques. Silkscreen was already used in advertising, posters, and T-shirts.
- Efficiency and Scalability: Hand-painting limited output. Silkscreen allowed rapid production of multiples, with assistants helping at the Factory (established later but the collaborative ethos began here). Warhol said: "I tried doing them by hand, but I find it easier to use a screen. This way, I don’t have to work on my objects at all. One of my assistants or anyone else... can reproduce the design as well as I could."
- Philosophical Fit: It embodied his machine-like ideal, challenging notions of originality, authorship, and the "precious" unique artwork. It mirrored consumer culture's mass production.
- Technical Appeal: Produced slightly imperfect, grainy results (not too sharp), which he preferred over overly polished images. It enabled layering colors and combining with hand-painted elements.
How Warhol's Silkscreen Process Worked (Early 1960s)
Warhol combined hand elements with photographic reproduction:
- Image Selection: Photos from newspapers, magazines, publicity stills (e.g., Marilyn), or his own.
- Screen Preparation: A mesh screen (silk or synthetic) coated with photosensitive emulsion. A transparency of the image (often black-and-white) was exposed onto it with light, hardening the emulsion except where the image blocked it. The unexposed areas washed away, creating a stencil.
- Underpainting (Often): Warhol or assistants painted background colors or traced outlines by hand on the canvas first for vibrancy and control.
- Printing: The screen was placed on the canvas; ink was pushed through the open mesh with a squeegee. Multiple colors required separate screens. Variations in pressure, ink, or alignment created unique "multiples."
- Finishing: Accents or corrections by hand.
Impact on His Career
- Output Explosion: Enabled series like Marilyns, Liz Taylor, Elvis, Campbell's (later prints), and more. It supported the Factory's collaborative, assembly-line model.
- Thematic Depth: Highlighted fame's fleeting nature (ghostly overlays, misregistrations), death, and commodification. Repetition desensitized images while making them iconic.
- Legacy: Silkscreen became synonymous with Warhol and influenced countless artists. It blurred painting/printmaking boundaries and prefigured digital reproduction.
Warhol's transition from hand-painting to mechanical reproduction (primarily silkscreen) in 1962 was gradual rather than sudden, evolving from his commercial illustration roots and early Pop experiments. It was not primarily driven by "greed" for market extension, though commercial success and scalability were clear benefits he embraced. Instead, it aligned with his conceptual goals of impersonality, repetition, and mimicking mass production.
Gradual Nature and Preparation of the Transition Phase
Was It Driven by Greed for Market Extension?
Not primarily. Warhol had long been commercially minded ("I started as a commercial artist, and I want to finish as a business artist"), and silkscreen boosted productivity and sales potential through multiples and Factory collaboration. However, his statements and choices emphasize artistic and philosophical motives over pure profit. The transition enabled exploring themes of fame, death, and commodification at scale (e.g., post-Marilyn death works), while fitting Pop Art's critique/celebration of consumer culture. He viewed it as democratizing art and removing elitist handcraft.
Warhol's Own Comments
Warhol was famously laconic but articulate on this shift in interviews:
This transition solidified Warhol's identity as the ultimate Pop artist, linking process to content: mechanical methods mirrored the mechanical, repetitive nature of American consumer and media culture. It was pragmatic, conceptual, and commercially savvy—all at once.
Gradual Nature and Preparation of the Transition Phase
- Pre-1962 Foundations: Warhol's career as a commercial illustrator (1950s) involved blotted-line techniques for quick multiples and precise, stylized ads. Early Pop works (1961–early 1962) like Coca-Cola bottles and initial Campbell's Soup Cans used hand-painting with projectors for outlines, rubber stamps, or stencils—already mechanical in spirit but labor-intensive.
- Key Experiments (Early 1962): Dollar bill paintings began as hand-drawn images transferred via silkscreen (due to currency reproduction restrictions). These were among his first silkscreen efforts. The Do It Yourself series highlighted paint-by-numbers mechanics, serving as a conceptual bridge.
- Learning and Refinement: In late 1961–1962, Warhol learned silkscreen from sources like Floriano Vecchi of Tiber Press. He refined it through trial and error, initially unhappy with "smeary" results from drawings before shifting to sharper photographic sources. He sent images to commercial screen makers with specs for size and colors.
- Hybrid Approach: Early silkscreens often combined hand-underpainting (colors, outlines) with photographic screens for the final image. This allowed control while achieving a mechanical look.
Was It Driven by Greed for Market Extension?
Not primarily. Warhol had long been commercially minded ("I started as a commercial artist, and I want to finish as a business artist"), and silkscreen boosted productivity and sales potential through multiples and Factory collaboration. However, his statements and choices emphasize artistic and philosophical motives over pure profit. The transition enabled exploring themes of fame, death, and commodification at scale (e.g., post-Marilyn death works), while fitting Pop Art's critique/celebration of consumer culture. He viewed it as democratizing art and removing elitist handcraft.
Warhol's Own Comments
Warhol was famously laconic but articulate on this shift in interviews:
- Iconic Quote (1963, Art News interview with Gene Swenson): "The reason I'm painting this way is that I want to be a machine, and I feel that whatever I do and do machine-like is what I want to do." This directly referenced silkscreen's repetitive, impersonal process.
- On efficiency and chance: "With silk-screening, you pick up a photograph, blow it up, transfer it in glue onto silk, and then roll ink across it so the ink goes through the silk but not through the glue. That way you get the same image, slightly different each time. It was so simple—quick and chancy. I was thrilled with it."
- On assistants/reproducibility: "I tried doing them by hand, but I find it easier to use a screen. This way, I don’t have to work on my objects at all. One of my assistants or anyone else, for that matter, can reproduce the design as well as I could."
This transition solidified Warhol's identity as the ultimate Pop artist, linking process to content: mechanical methods mirrored the mechanical, repetitive nature of American consumer and media culture. It was pragmatic, conceptual, and commercially savvy—all at once.
Marilyn
After his first solo exhibition in July 1962 in Los Angeles, Andy Warhol, a former advertising illustrator turned artist and the painter of Coca Cola bottles and Campbell's cans, manages to develop a quick and repeatable technique to produce paintings : silkscreen printing over a painted surface. With such a process, he will make multiple images either dispositioned side by side on the same canvas or featured in different colors on separated canvas.
He makes his first trials with photographs of teen stars, Natalie Wood, Troy Donahue and Warren Beatty. The sudden death of Marilyn Monroe on August 5 is a major shock to the American dream. Magazines explore frantically the last periods of her life.just at that time. Warhol appreciates that the image of the actress who had mingled tragedy and glamour was a perfect theme for the development of his art beyond cats and soup cans.
He makes his first trials with photographs of teen stars, Natalie Wood, Troy Donahue and Warren Beatty. The sudden death of Marilyn Monroe on August 5 is a major shock to the American dream. Magazines explore frantically the last periods of her life.just at that time. Warhol appreciates that the image of the actress who had mingled tragedy and glamour was a perfect theme for the development of his art beyond cats and soup cans.
Single Marilyn
White
2014 SOLD for $ 41M by Christie's
The early trials do not meet the productivity required by Warhol. The series of twelve single Marilyn 51 x 41 cm are made with a single screen printing over acrylic paints of various colors. Two of these paintings are monochromatic. They are the precursors of the global imaging desired by Warhol.
The White Marilyn was sold for $ 41M from a lower estimate of $ 12M by Christie's on May 13, 2014.
Compare Warhol's White Marilyn (1962), part of the early series of 12 and sold by Christie's on May 13, 2014, with the seminal Gold Marilyn (1962, MoMA). When and why did Warhol first have in mind the extreme multiplication of a single image ?
Comparison of White Marilyn (1962) and Gold Marilyn Monroe (1962, MoMA)
Both works are from Andy Warhol's early Marilyn Monroe series, created shortly after the actress's death on August 5, 1962, using the same source image: a publicity photograph from her 1953 film Niagara. They employ silkscreen ink on canvas, marking Warhol's shift to mechanical reproduction techniques that mimic mass media and consumer culture.
When and Why Warhol First Conceived Extreme Multiplication of a Single Image
Warhol's idea of extreme multiplication—repeating a single image dozens or hundreds of times to evoke mass production, desensitization, and consumer culture—emerged in early 1962, rooted in his commercial illustration background and fascination with advertising's repetitive branding.
The White Marilyn was sold for $ 41M from a lower estimate of $ 12M by Christie's on May 13, 2014.
Compare Warhol's White Marilyn (1962), part of the early series of 12 and sold by Christie's on May 13, 2014, with the seminal Gold Marilyn (1962, MoMA). When and why did Warhol first have in mind the extreme multiplication of a single image ?
Comparison of White Marilyn (1962) and Gold Marilyn Monroe (1962, MoMA)
Both works are from Andy Warhol's early Marilyn Monroe series, created shortly after the actress's death on August 5, 1962, using the same source image: a publicity photograph from her 1953 film Niagara. They employ silkscreen ink on canvas, marking Warhol's shift to mechanical reproduction techniques that mimic mass media and consumer culture.
- Gold Marilyn Monroe (MoMA collection): This is a large, singular portrait (approximately 6 ft 11 in × 4 ft 9 in). The canvas is painted in metallic gold, evoking Byzantine religious icons or altarpieces, with Marilyn's face centered like a sacred figure amid empty space. The gold background symbolizes glamour, immortality, and celebrity worship, while also suggesting a memorial or funerary quality—elevating her to a "golden icon" of Hollywood. It was acquired by architect Philip Johnson and donated to MoMA.
- The "Flavor Marilyns" (1962)The "Flavor Marilyns" refer to a series of approximately 12 single-portrait paintings (sometimes cited as 8–12 core works, often nicknamed after candy flavors like Lemon, Cherry, Mint, Blue, Orange, etc.). These featured Monroe's face against bold, monochromatic or limited-color backgrounds, with hand-applied acrylic paint alongside silkscreen ink. They debuted at Warhol's first New York solo exhibition at the Stable Gallery in November 1962, alongside works like Gold Marilyn Monroe (a single iconic portrait on gold background, evoking Byzantine icons) and multi-image pieces like the Marilyn Diptych (50 repeated images, half in color fading to black-and-white, symbolizing life, fame, and death). These 1962 works were unique or small-series paintings on canvas, often with visible imperfections, uneven inking, and a raw, experimental quality. The cropping showed more of the shoulders/chest, and colors were vibrant but sometimes subdued or metallic.
- White Marilyn (1962, sold at Christie's on May 13, 2014, for approximately $41 million): Part of a series of about 12 smaller "single Marilyns" (roughly 20 × 16 inches each), often called the "Flavor Marilyns" for their varied color backgrounds. This one features a stark white background, creating an ethereal, ghostly effect that emphasizes fragility, absence, and death. It was among eight Marilyns shown at Warhol's first New York solo exhibition at the Stable Gallery in November 1962.
- Composition and scale: Gold is monumental and solitary, isolating Marilyn like a deity or relic; White is intimate and part of a serialized group, emphasizing variation through color.
- Color symbolism: Gold conveys opulence, eternal fame, and religious veneration; white suggests purity, void, ephemerality, and mourning—heightening the post-mortem context.
- Emotional tone: Gold blends celebration with memorialization; White feels more stark and melancholic, almost fading into oblivion.
When and Why Warhol First Conceived Extreme Multiplication of a Single Image
Warhol's idea of extreme multiplication—repeating a single image dozens or hundreds of times to evoke mass production, desensitization, and consumer culture—emerged in early 1962, rooted in his commercial illustration background and fascination with advertising's repetitive branding.
- Origins: Influenced by everyday repetition (e.g., he claimed to eat Campbell's soup daily for 20 years), Warhol began experimenting with serial imagery around 1961–1962. His breakthrough came with the Campbell's Soup Cans series (32 individual canvases, one per flavor, debuted July 1962 at Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles), mimicking supermarket shelves.
- Full realization: By mid-1962, he adopted silkscreening for mechanical repetition. This culminated in works like the Marilyn Diptych (1962, 50 repeated images) and later grids of hundreds (e.g., soup cans, disasters). The "why": To critique (and celebrate) American consumerism, where identical products flood the market; remove the artist's "hand" for impersonality; and comment on fame/media saturation—repetition drains meaning while amplifying cultural icons.
Lemon
2007 SOLD for $ 28M by Christie's
The series of twelve single Marilyn 51 x 41 cm are made with a single screen printing over acrylic paints of various colors. Two of these paintings are monochromatic. They are the precursors of the global imaging desired by Warhol.
The White Marilyn was sold for $ 41M by Christie's on May 13, 2014. The Lemon Marilyn was sold for $ 28M by Christie's on May 18, 2007, lot 18. The Orange Marilyn was sold for $ 16.3M by Christie's on November 15, 2006, lot 32.
The White Marilyn was sold for $ 41M by Christie's on May 13, 2014. The Lemon Marilyn was sold for $ 28M by Christie's on May 18, 2007, lot 18. The Orange Marilyn was sold for $ 16.3M by Christie's on November 15, 2006, lot 32.
Masterpiece
1962 Gold Marilyn
MoMA
Marilyn was dazzling. Andy chooses a film still made in 1952 to exalt his new posthumous muse. He copies the same image four times, in two columns and two rows, for a total size that now would seem small, 73 x 55 cm. In addition to the nice smile, the yellow hair before the orange background is expressing that death should not take its toll on the actress.
The seminal series of twelve is contemporary with the Gold Marilyn currently at the MoMA, where the single silkscreen portrait surrounded by a halo occupies the center of a monumental canvas 211 x 145 cm.
That fabulous Gold Marilyn confirms that Warhol chose the theme of Marilyn through a mystical impulse and not by worldliness or desire to shock. A deep believer, he will come much later to religious iconography, preferring to show a preaching Christ rather than dying on the cross. His choice of an early picture of a Marilyn resplendent before the tragic events of her life matches the same idea.
Warhol had a daily practice of Catholicism. By spreading Marilyn's image, he possibly also referred to the global use of the Christ on the Cross as the primordial Christian image.
Andy Warhol was indeed a practicing Byzantine Catholic throughout his life, raised in a devout Ruthenian (Eastern Rite) family in Pittsburgh. He attended services regularly as a child at St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church, surrounded by gilded iconostases filled with repeated sacred images. As an adult in New York, he frequently visited churches (often several times a week, including daily stops for prayer), volunteered at soup kitchens run by religious organizations, and maintained private devotions, though he kept this side of his life largely hidden from the public eye.
Your suggestion that Warhol's multiplication of Marilyn Monroe's image might parallel the widespread, global dissemination of the Crucifixion (Christ on the Cross) as Christianity's central icon is a perceptive and well-supported interpretation in art scholarship.
Gold Marilyn as Modern Icon
Gold Marilyn Monroe (1962) is frequently described as a direct homage to Byzantine religious icons, with its metallic gold background evoking the divine light and eternity of sacred figures (often the Virgin Mary or Christ Pantocrator). The isolated, centered portrait on a vast gold field transforms Marilyn into a secular "saint" or object of veneration, blending glamour with memorialization shortly after her death.
Repetition and Sacred Multiplication
The extreme repetition in works like the Marilyn Diptych (50 images) or later grids echoes the mass production and ubiquitous presence of Christian icons—crucifixes, Virgin Mary images, and crosses adorn churches, homes, and public spaces worldwide, repeated endlessly yet retaining devotional power. In Byzantine tradition, icons are not unique artworks but reproducible windows to the divine, often created in workshops with serial formats. Warhol's "Factory" method and serial imagery similarly elevate mass-media icons (celebrities as modern deities) while commenting on how repetition can both sacralize and desensitize.
This parallel extends to the crucifix specifically: just as the image of Christ crucified is the primordial, universally replicated symbol of sacrifice and redemption in Christianity—found in countless variations across cultures—Warhol's flooding of culture with Marilyn's face critiques (and mimics) how media turns individuals into commodified, immortal "icons" of fame, beauty, and tragedy.
Scholars note that Warhol's Catholic background informed this approach: his childhood exposure to icon screens filled with repeated holy images likely shaped his fascination with serialization as a way to explore veneration, mortality, and cultural worship. While Warhol rarely spoke explicitly about these religious ties, the visual and thematic connections are widely recognized as intentional layers in his Pop critique of American idolatry. Your reading aligns closely with these analyses, highlighting how he secularized sacred forms to reflect celebrity as a new religion.
The seminal series of twelve is contemporary with the Gold Marilyn currently at the MoMA, where the single silkscreen portrait surrounded by a halo occupies the center of a monumental canvas 211 x 145 cm.
That fabulous Gold Marilyn confirms that Warhol chose the theme of Marilyn through a mystical impulse and not by worldliness or desire to shock. A deep believer, he will come much later to religious iconography, preferring to show a preaching Christ rather than dying on the cross. His choice of an early picture of a Marilyn resplendent before the tragic events of her life matches the same idea.
Warhol had a daily practice of Catholicism. By spreading Marilyn's image, he possibly also referred to the global use of the Christ on the Cross as the primordial Christian image.
Andy Warhol was indeed a practicing Byzantine Catholic throughout his life, raised in a devout Ruthenian (Eastern Rite) family in Pittsburgh. He attended services regularly as a child at St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church, surrounded by gilded iconostases filled with repeated sacred images. As an adult in New York, he frequently visited churches (often several times a week, including daily stops for prayer), volunteered at soup kitchens run by religious organizations, and maintained private devotions, though he kept this side of his life largely hidden from the public eye.
Your suggestion that Warhol's multiplication of Marilyn Monroe's image might parallel the widespread, global dissemination of the Crucifixion (Christ on the Cross) as Christianity's central icon is a perceptive and well-supported interpretation in art scholarship.
Gold Marilyn as Modern Icon
Gold Marilyn Monroe (1962) is frequently described as a direct homage to Byzantine religious icons, with its metallic gold background evoking the divine light and eternity of sacred figures (often the Virgin Mary or Christ Pantocrator). The isolated, centered portrait on a vast gold field transforms Marilyn into a secular "saint" or object of veneration, blending glamour with memorialization shortly after her death.
Repetition and Sacred Multiplication
The extreme repetition in works like the Marilyn Diptych (50 images) or later grids echoes the mass production and ubiquitous presence of Christian icons—crucifixes, Virgin Mary images, and crosses adorn churches, homes, and public spaces worldwide, repeated endlessly yet retaining devotional power. In Byzantine tradition, icons are not unique artworks but reproducible windows to the divine, often created in workshops with serial formats. Warhol's "Factory" method and serial imagery similarly elevate mass-media icons (celebrities as modern deities) while commenting on how repetition can both sacralize and desensitize.
This parallel extends to the crucifix specifically: just as the image of Christ crucified is the primordial, universally replicated symbol of sacrifice and redemption in Christianity—found in countless variations across cultures—Warhol's flooding of culture with Marilyn's face critiques (and mimics) how media turns individuals into commodified, immortal "icons" of fame, beauty, and tragedy.
Scholars note that Warhol's Catholic background informed this approach: his childhood exposure to icon screens filled with repeated holy images likely shaped his fascination with serialization as a way to explore veneration, mortality, and cultural worship. While Warhol rarely spoke explicitly about these religious ties, the visual and thematic connections are widely recognized as intentional layers in his Pop critique of American idolatry. Your reading aligns closely with these analyses, highlighting how he secularized sacred forms to reflect celebrity as a new religion.
Multiple Marilyns
Four
2013 SOLD for $ 38M by Phillips
This is still a time for experiment. To enhance the graphic quality, Andy passes a second silkscreened layer over the acrylic. He shall quickly abandon this refinement which was not conducive to the rapid diversification wished by him for his art. This 'Four Marilyns' is one of the very first in the series devoted by Andy to this picture of the actress.
Warhol's Four Marilyns was sold for $ 38M by Phillips on May 16, 2013, lot 23. Please watch the video shared by the auction house before the sale. It was later sold for $ 36M by Christie's on November 10, 2015, lot 20B.
Warhol's Four Marilyns was sold for $ 38M by Phillips on May 16, 2013, lot 23. Please watch the video shared by the auction house before the sale. It was later sold for $ 36M by Christie's on November 10, 2015, lot 20B.
Nine
2021 SOLD for $ 47M by Sotheby's
Some diversity can be reached while using indefinitely the same image, through the format, the multiplicity, the background, the contrast and the margins. The Nine Marilyns painted in 1962 by Andy Warhol has it all.
The vertical canvas 207 x 86 cm is centered without side margins by a block of nine black and white silkscreen images in three rows and three columns. The upper and lower margins highlight the luminous silver color of the whole background, which is an early direct reference by Andy to the cinema screen. The images are voluntarily more or less faded in a simulation of the wearing of the celluloid, a metaphor of Marilyn's vanishing after her death.
A multiple Natalie Wood made of many overlapping examples from a single image on a white background is a precursor. This canvas 210 x 160 cm painted in 1962 was sold for $ 2.76M by Sotheby's on May 18, 2000, lot 31.
Nine Marilyns was sold for $ 47M by Sotheby's on November 15, 2021, lot 19.
Compare Four Marilyns, sold for $ 38M by Phillips on May 16, 2013, lot 23 vs Nine Marilyns. Establish the execution timeline of these two pieces with the early series of 12 single Marilyns.
The Marilyn Monroe series by Andy Warhol, his first major foray into celebrity portraiture via silkscreen, began immediately after Monroe's suicide on August 5, 1962. Warhol had experimented with silkscreen earlier in summer 1962 (e.g., on Troy Donahue and Warren Beatty heads, following his Ferus Gallery show in Los Angeles that closed August 4), but Monroe's death prompted him to create a screen from a 1953 Niagara publicity still and produce the Marilyn works rapidly from mid-August onward through late 1962 (mostly August–October, with some into November/December for larger serial pieces). The official Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné: Paintings and Sculpture 1961–1963 (vol. 1, 2002) dates the entire group to 1962, with the initial impetus tied to her death, and groups them into:
The vertical canvas 207 x 86 cm is centered without side margins by a block of nine black and white silkscreen images in three rows and three columns. The upper and lower margins highlight the luminous silver color of the whole background, which is an early direct reference by Andy to the cinema screen. The images are voluntarily more or less faded in a simulation of the wearing of the celluloid, a metaphor of Marilyn's vanishing after her death.
A multiple Natalie Wood made of many overlapping examples from a single image on a white background is a precursor. This canvas 210 x 160 cm painted in 1962 was sold for $ 2.76M by Sotheby's on May 18, 2000, lot 31.
Nine Marilyns was sold for $ 47M by Sotheby's on November 15, 2021, lot 19.
Compare Four Marilyns, sold for $ 38M by Phillips on May 16, 2013, lot 23 vs Nine Marilyns. Establish the execution timeline of these two pieces with the early series of 12 single Marilyns.
The Marilyn Monroe series by Andy Warhol, his first major foray into celebrity portraiture via silkscreen, began immediately after Monroe's suicide on August 5, 1962. Warhol had experimented with silkscreen earlier in summer 1962 (e.g., on Troy Donahue and Warren Beatty heads, following his Ferus Gallery show in Los Angeles that closed August 4), but Monroe's death prompted him to create a screen from a 1953 Niagara publicity still and produce the Marilyn works rapidly from mid-August onward through late 1962 (mostly August–October, with some into November/December for larger serial pieces). The official Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné: Paintings and Sculpture 1961–1963 (vol. 1, 2002) dates the entire group to 1962, with the initial impetus tied to her death, and groups them into:
- Single Marilyns (also called "Flavor Marilyns" for their vibrant, hand-painted color variations, evoking taste/consumerism): Approximately 12 early single-head portraits (various colors like turquoise, pink, orange, etc.), executed August–September 1962. These represent the earliest Marilyns — intimate, close-up, and often more painterly in their backgrounds and details, marking Warhol's initial response to her death as a memorial/iconic image before scaling up repetition.
- Serial/multiple Marilyns: Larger works repeating the image in grids or rows, exploring mass media replication, celebrity commodification, and detachment. These followed soon after the singles, building on the same screen but emphasizing seriality.
- Execution date: 1962, specifically August 1962 (per Phillips catalogue and cross-references in the catalogue raisonné, e.g., no. 271 in vol. 1).
- It is one of the earliest serial Marilyns, a small-scale (29 x 21½ in.) vertical composition of four repeated images in vibrant colors with hand-painted variations (e.g., subtle shifts in expression/smile via brushwork thickness). It uses a unique three-part silkscreen technique (layered pigment then re-screening). This places it among the initial post-death burst, likely shortly after the single Marilyns, as part of Warhol's rapid experimentation with repetition in the weeks following August 5. It was included in early consignments (e.g., October 1962 to galleries) and shown in his first New York solo at Stable Gallery (opened November 1962), where the Marilyns evoked tragedy amid media frenzy.
- Execution date: 1962 (per Sotheby's catalogue and catalogue raisonné, e.g., no. 267 in vol. 1).
- This tall vertical canvas (81½ x 33¾ in.) features nine repeated images in black-and-white/smudgy tones with graphite and acrylic, one of only a few vertical-format Marilyns that year. It is positioned in the catalogue raisonné among the serial Marilyns produced from August onward into fall 1962, after the initial singles and smaller multiples like Four Marilyns. Sources note Warhol created about 20 Marilyn silkscreen paintings from Monroe's death through year-end, with Nine Marilyns as an early but slightly later example in the sequence — emphasizing stark, graphic repetition over the colorful "flavor" variations of the singles or Four Marilyns. It ties into the broader shift toward larger, more mechanical serial works before his November 1962 Stable Gallery debut.
- Mid-August 1962 — Warhol creates the Marilyn screen and begins the single Marilyns (the ~12 flavor/variant singles first, as direct, intimate responses to her death).
- August–September 1962 — Transition to serial repetition: smaller multiples like Four Marilyns emerge quickly (still early in the burst, with hand-painted elements linking back to the singles).
- Late summer–fall 1962 (September–October/November) — Larger serial works like Nine Marilyns follow, scaling up repetition in vertical formats, leading into major pieces like Marilyn Diptych (50 images, late 1962) and others shown at Stable Gallery.
Fall 1962 silkscreens
200 One Dollar Bills
2009 SOLD for $ 44M by Sotheby's
What is more repetitive in everyday life than a banknote? At least, everyone wants it so. What could more easily attract the attention of an American middleman than his $ 1 ticket?
There is no doubt that Andy Warhol loved dollars, not just to fill his pockets but mainly as an undeniable symbol of modern America. He was also busy to create his own legend. Stories about his inspiration on this theme are certainly apocryphal.
On July 1, 2015, Sotheby's listed a wide selection of dollar paintings made by Warhol throughout his career, at first in the form of images of bills and later by more or less fanciful representations of the sign.
In early 1962 One Dollar Bill (silver certificate) is the gigantic cut down image of the front side of a one dollar bill. This casein and pencil on linen, 132 x 182 cm, was the first artwork made by Warhol on this theme and his only dollar painted entirely by hand. It is also contemporary with the series painted by hand of the variations on the soup cans. One Dollar Bill was sold for £ 21M, lot 24.
March - April 1962 is Warhol's breakthrough phase. He then operates at all scales the fruitful idea of multiples, for which he is helped by the silkscreen printing technique in two complementary ways : separation of similar works with variations of colors, and juxtaposition of identical patterns on the same work.
The monumental 200 One Dollar Bills, 203 x 234 cm, showing 200 front sides in twenty rows of ten notes each without interval was sold for $ 44M from a lower estimate of $ 8M by Sotheby's on November 11, 2009. The image, unspectacular on the web, is shared by AuctionPublicity.
Created early in Warhol's Pop Art career, the piece repeats dollar bill images to satirize consumerism and mass production, ironically fetching a fortune that amplified its cultural commentary.
There is no doubt that Andy Warhol loved dollars, not just to fill his pockets but mainly as an undeniable symbol of modern America. He was also busy to create his own legend. Stories about his inspiration on this theme are certainly apocryphal.
On July 1, 2015, Sotheby's listed a wide selection of dollar paintings made by Warhol throughout his career, at first in the form of images of bills and later by more or less fanciful representations of the sign.
In early 1962 One Dollar Bill (silver certificate) is the gigantic cut down image of the front side of a one dollar bill. This casein and pencil on linen, 132 x 182 cm, was the first artwork made by Warhol on this theme and his only dollar painted entirely by hand. It is also contemporary with the series painted by hand of the variations on the soup cans. One Dollar Bill was sold for £ 21M, lot 24.
March - April 1962 is Warhol's breakthrough phase. He then operates at all scales the fruitful idea of multiples, for which he is helped by the silkscreen printing technique in two complementary ways : separation of similar works with variations of colors, and juxtaposition of identical patterns on the same work.
The monumental 200 One Dollar Bills, 203 x 234 cm, showing 200 front sides in twenty rows of ten notes each without interval was sold for $ 44M from a lower estimate of $ 8M by Sotheby's on November 11, 2009. The image, unspectacular on the web, is shared by AuctionPublicity.
Created early in Warhol's Pop Art career, the piece repeats dollar bill images to satirize consumerism and mass production, ironically fetching a fortune that amplified its cultural commentary.
Men in her Life
2010 SOLD for $ 63M by Phillips de Pury
The artistic language explored by Andy Warhol in 1962 is absolutely new. Objects from the mass consumption have their place in art in the form of series because they constitute an imaginary world understandable by everybody, and too bad if it is trivial. When he appreciates the advantage of screen printing to flood the art world with his pictures, he multiplies the dollars, more precisely the images of banknotes.
The world is fake and the celebrities are ephemeral. Warhol multiplies the Marilyns after the death of the actress as if she were a new Madonna. It is not enough for him. He will attack both the artificial life of the stars and the lies of photographs and newspapers.
Precisely, an article published by Life on April 13, 1962 summarizes the pathetic trajectory of the top movie star of the moment, Liz Taylor. After two divorces, she had been the widow of Mike Todd and it is clear that her fourth marriage, with Eddie Fisher, will not last. One of the photos cut from Life had been taken at the Epsom Derby in 1957. It shows two married couples whose destinies will soon collapse, Todd and Taylor and Fisher with Debbie Reynolds.
Made in the fall of 1962, Men in her Life is a black and white silkscreen on canvas 215 x 212 cm based on that happy image which is copied 38 times in seven rows. The artist varied the contrasts, from saturated to clear. A classic reading from left to right and from top to bottom transforms this unique theme into an agonizing narration, with a gradual deterioration in the quality of the image and in its cropping and with the jagged appearance of the right edge.
The variety of contrasts and framings opens the way for the Elvis Ferus-type of the following year. The title makes the actress appear as a man-eater, anticipating the morbid atmosphere of Death and Disaster and especially the mosaics of images of Car Crash, also from 1963. Again in 1963 the seriously ill Liz will succeed Marilyn in Warhol's pantheon.
Men in her Life was sold for $ 63M by Phillips de Pury on November 8, 2010, lot 15.
The artwork captures Warhol's early fascination with Hollywood glamour and serial imagery, using a publicity still to comment on celebrity transience amid Taylor's tumultuous personal life.
At the time, the sale shattered Warhol records, reflecting a booming market for Pop Art icons, with the piece later valued higher in private collections amid sustained auction highs for similar celebrity portraits.
The world is fake and the celebrities are ephemeral. Warhol multiplies the Marilyns after the death of the actress as if she were a new Madonna. It is not enough for him. He will attack both the artificial life of the stars and the lies of photographs and newspapers.
Precisely, an article published by Life on April 13, 1962 summarizes the pathetic trajectory of the top movie star of the moment, Liz Taylor. After two divorces, she had been the widow of Mike Todd and it is clear that her fourth marriage, with Eddie Fisher, will not last. One of the photos cut from Life had been taken at the Epsom Derby in 1957. It shows two married couples whose destinies will soon collapse, Todd and Taylor and Fisher with Debbie Reynolds.
Made in the fall of 1962, Men in her Life is a black and white silkscreen on canvas 215 x 212 cm based on that happy image which is copied 38 times in seven rows. The artist varied the contrasts, from saturated to clear. A classic reading from left to right and from top to bottom transforms this unique theme into an agonizing narration, with a gradual deterioration in the quality of the image and in its cropping and with the jagged appearance of the right edge.
The variety of contrasts and framings opens the way for the Elvis Ferus-type of the following year. The title makes the actress appear as a man-eater, anticipating the morbid atmosphere of Death and Disaster and especially the mosaics of images of Car Crash, also from 1963. Again in 1963 the seriously ill Liz will succeed Marilyn in Warhol's pantheon.
Men in her Life was sold for $ 63M by Phillips de Pury on November 8, 2010, lot 15.
The artwork captures Warhol's early fascination with Hollywood glamour and serial imagery, using a publicity still to comment on celebrity transience amid Taylor's tumultuous personal life.
At the time, the sale shattered Warhol records, reflecting a booming market for Pop Art icons, with the piece later valued higher in private collections amid sustained auction highs for similar celebrity portraits.
Statue of Liberty
2012 SOLD for $ 44M by Christie's
For Warhol, in 1962, all experiences, all messages are possible. His artistic language is entirely new.
The use of silkscreen ink applied to the enlargement of a trivial photograph is the decisive creative invention of Warhol. It allows the endless repetition of the same image, with a speed of execution that quickly diversifies the catalog of the artist. It is not to be considered as a print due to the variants from a completed artwork to another and also because of the finish with spray enamel and graphite.
But what does exactly want this former designer of ads? Present to the world a publicity for America, or deride its consumer society? Exalt the hope of a sheltered life, or exacerbate the futility of politics?
If there were only stars and soup cans, Warhol's message is simple. Disasters, electric chairs, car crashes put everything into question. Executed in 1962, Warhol's Statue of Liberty anticipates all the social gnashing of his art. In our world, everything is false.
The symbol is present, as in reality, off Manhattan. Warhol well knows that the multiplicity of images kills emotion. Thanks to his screen printing technique, he kills the hope of Liberty by aligning 4 rows of 6 identical images.
Warhol knows that painting is an illusory representation of the three-dimensional reality of the world. Each of the 24 units of Miss Liberty is treated in green and red like an anaglyph, but the two views are from one single postcard. The viewer with his stereoscopic glasses marvels at a false illusion of 3D due to inequality of the finish.
This canvas 198 x 206 cm was sold for $ 44M by Christie's on November 14, 2012, lot 35.
The use of silkscreen ink applied to the enlargement of a trivial photograph is the decisive creative invention of Warhol. It allows the endless repetition of the same image, with a speed of execution that quickly diversifies the catalog of the artist. It is not to be considered as a print due to the variants from a completed artwork to another and also because of the finish with spray enamel and graphite.
But what does exactly want this former designer of ads? Present to the world a publicity for America, or deride its consumer society? Exalt the hope of a sheltered life, or exacerbate the futility of politics?
If there were only stars and soup cans, Warhol's message is simple. Disasters, electric chairs, car crashes put everything into question. Executed in 1962, Warhol's Statue of Liberty anticipates all the social gnashing of his art. In our world, everything is false.
The symbol is present, as in reality, off Manhattan. Warhol well knows that the multiplicity of images kills emotion. Thanks to his screen printing technique, he kills the hope of Liberty by aligning 4 rows of 6 identical images.
Warhol knows that painting is an illusory representation of the three-dimensional reality of the world. Each of the 24 units of Miss Liberty is treated in green and red like an anaglyph, but the two views are from one single postcard. The viewer with his stereoscopic glasses marvels at a false illusion of 3D due to inequality of the finish.
This canvas 198 x 206 cm was sold for $ 44M by Christie's on November 14, 2012, lot 35.
Special Report
Duchamp's influence
Marcel Duchamp exerted one of the deepest and most formative influences on Andy Warhol, shaping his conceptual foundation, approach to everyday objects, mechanical reproduction, identity play, and the very definition of art. Many scholars and curators consider Duchamp the single most important predecessor for Warhol—more influential than any other artist—with their artistic kinship explored in major exhibitions like Twisted Pair: Marcel Duchamp / Andy Warhol (2010 at The Andy Warhol Museum).
Readymades and the Elevation of the Ordinary
Duchamp’s readymades (everyday manufactured objects presented as art, such as Fountain (1917) or the snow shovel) gave Warhol permission to treat commercial products as artistic subjects.
Mechanical Reproduction, Detachment, and the Factory
Duchamp’s embrace of chance, machines, and anti-craftsmanship influenced Warhol’s silkscreen technique and the “Factory” as a production site. Both artists distanced themselves from traditional notions of the expressive, hand-made artwork.
Both artists were masters of persona and ambiguity:
They met in the early 1960s (including at Duchamp’s 1963 Pasadena retrospective). Warhol owned over 30 Duchamp works (originals, editions, posters) and filmed him in a 1966 Screen Test. Duchamp even authorized editions of his readymades in 1964, partly in response to the rising Pop generation like Warhol.
In summary, Duchamp provided the intellectual and philosophical blueprint: art as concept, the readymade as provocation, and the artist as provocateur rather than expressive genius. Warhol absorbed this and applied it enthusiastically to American consumerism, celebrity, and media culture—making it bigger, glossier, and more repetitive. Where Duchamp was cerebral and often ironic-with-a-smirk, Warhol was deadpan-obsessive and factory-scale. Their combined legacy redefined 20th-century art by collapsing boundaries between high/low, original/reproduced, and art/life. As one curator put it, Duchamp may have held more influence on Warhol than any other artist.
Duchamp’s ideas liberated Pop artists (Warhol, Ruscha, and indirectly Hockney) from Abstract Expressionism’s emotional intensity, enabling their engagement with TV/media-saturated culture.
Readymades and the Elevation of the Ordinary
Duchamp’s readymades (everyday manufactured objects presented as art, such as Fountain (1917) or the snow shovel) gave Warhol permission to treat commercial products as artistic subjects.
- Warhol’s Brillo Boxes (1964) directly parallel Duchamp: stacked wooden replicas of the consumer product, exhibited as sculpture. This challenged notions of authorship, craftsmanship, and originality, asking “What is art?” in the age of mass production.
- Similarly, Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962) and repeated consumer icons (Coca-Cola bottles, dollar bills) extend Duchamp’s idea that choice and context transform the banal into art. Duchamp himself commented approvingly on the conceptual repetition in Warhol’s soup cans.
Mechanical Reproduction, Detachment, and the Factory
Duchamp’s embrace of chance, machines, and anti-craftsmanship influenced Warhol’s silkscreen technique and the “Factory” as a production site. Both artists distanced themselves from traditional notions of the expressive, hand-made artwork.
- Warhol’s repetitive imagery (Marilyns, disasters, celebrities) creates detachment and desensitization, building on Duchamp’s irony and removal of the artist’s “hand.”
- Shared themes include money, fame, death, and the commodification of art itself. Warhol’s famous quip—“Making money is art and good business is the best art”—echoes Duchamp’s strategic playfulness with the art world.
Both artists were masters of persona and ambiguity:
- Duchamp’s Rrose Sélavy (female alter ego) and pseudonyms parallel Warhol’s wigs, sunglasses, and cultivated “blank” public image.
- Self-portraits and explorations of sexuality/identity appear in both (Duchamp’s gender play; Warhol’s queer icon status and celebrity portraits).
They met in the early 1960s (including at Duchamp’s 1963 Pasadena retrospective). Warhol owned over 30 Duchamp works (originals, editions, posters) and filmed him in a 1966 Screen Test. Duchamp even authorized editions of his readymades in 1964, partly in response to the rising Pop generation like Warhol.
In summary, Duchamp provided the intellectual and philosophical blueprint: art as concept, the readymade as provocation, and the artist as provocateur rather than expressive genius. Warhol absorbed this and applied it enthusiastically to American consumerism, celebrity, and media culture—making it bigger, glossier, and more repetitive. Where Duchamp was cerebral and often ironic-with-a-smirk, Warhol was deadpan-obsessive and factory-scale. Their combined legacy redefined 20th-century art by collapsing boundaries between high/low, original/reproduced, and art/life. As one curator put it, Duchamp may have held more influence on Warhol than any other artist.
Duchamp’s ideas liberated Pop artists (Warhol, Ruscha, and indirectly Hockney) from Abstract Expressionism’s emotional intensity, enabling their engagement with TV/media-saturated culture.
