Warhol
Andy Warhol (1928 - 1987) was an American artist, avant-garde filmmaker, writer and social figure. Warhol also worked as a publisher, music producer and actor. With his background and experience in commercial art, Warhol was one of the founders on the Pop Art Movement in the US in the 1950s. Warhol is best known for his extremely simple, larger-than-life, high contrast color paintings (silkscreen prints) of packaged consumer products, everyday objects - such as Campbell's soup, poppy flowers and the banana appearing on the cover of the rock music album the Velvet Underground and Nico (1967) - and for his stylized portraits of twentieth century celebrity icons - such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor and Ingrid Bergman.
Works from Warhol
' ""The most controversial, as well as the most famous, of all the American pop artists is Andy Warhol." This quotation from the well known English art critic Edward Lucie Smith's "Movements in Art since 1945", introduces one of the most perceptive presentations of Andy Warhol's work in the context of contemporary art. Warhol's activities go far beyond the conventional boundaries of painting: he has made numerous films, he has directed a night club, entertainment, written books, created fashion lines and composed music - to mention only a few of his achievements. Warhol is so closely identified with his art that he has in the public mind become something of a star, indeed an actor on the stage of the history of art. At the opening of the first retrospective of Warhol's art, held in Philadelphia in 1965, many of the exhibited works had to be removed to safety as the visitors crushed together to catch a glimpse of the artist himself.
Andy Warhol's achievements as a film maker are widely acknowledged outside the narrow circles of avantgarde cinema enthusiasts. His fascination with the stars of the film world has led to a series of portraits which have become extremely popular, one of the best known being his now famous portrait of Marilyn Monroe. At our meeting in the fall of 1982 we discussed these very 'Warhol' portraits and in the course of this converation on the stars of the cinema world Ingrid Bergman's name was brought up. In the circumstances this was only natural since her recent death had left her friends and admirers the world over with a deep sense of loss.
It was during this conversation that the idea of a series of graphic prints to honour the memory of a great artist whom we both admired, was born.
This conversation resulted after much creative effort on the part of the artist in these three original graphic works which it is now my pleasure to present to a wider public. In these three prints we meet a new Andy Warhol. Gone is the very deliberate sense of distance which characterised the earlier portraits, objective almost documentary in their lack of personal judgement, portraits of roles played rather than lived by people. The three portraits of Ingrid Bergman reveal Andy Warhol's personal feelings and unbounded admiration for a woman and actress whom he knew. The titles of the three prints are: "The Nun" (from "The Bells of St Mary's"), "With Hat" (from "Casablanca") and "Herself". This last title reveals just how far Andy Warhol has gone beyond the portrait of a star-role to a statement of undisguised, personal feeling in a portrait which is so strikingly beatiful as to reveal the mutual kinship between two great artists.
Cooperating with an artist who leaves nothing to chance makes great demands on one's time and patience. Once Andy Warhol engages himself in a project he becomes almost totally absorbed by the very process of artistic creativity. The boundaries of time and space are ignored, ideas exchanged and alternative approaches discussed freely and frequently despite the distance in miles between New York and Malmö. The final result convinces me that the many trips, the lengthy telephone conversations and the mutual agreement that no effort should be spared, no compromise allowed, that all these were well worth the demands of such a project. I feel deeply grateful over my good fortune in having been able, together with one of the greatest artists of our age, to honour the memory of Ingrid Bergman in this way. She now belongs to the history of truly great art."
Per-Olov Börjeson 1983
Andy Warhol's achievements as a film maker are widely acknowledged outside the narrow circles of avantgarde cinema enthusiasts. His fascination with the stars of the film world has led to a series of portraits which have become extremely popular, one of the best known being his now famous portrait of Marilyn Monroe. At our meeting in the fall of 1982 we discussed these very 'Warhol' portraits and in the course of this converation on the stars of the cinema world Ingrid Bergman's name was brought up. In the circumstances this was only natural since her recent death had left her friends and admirers the world over with a deep sense of loss.
It was during this conversation that the idea of a series of graphic prints to honour the memory of a great artist whom we both admired, was born.
This conversation resulted after much creative effort on the part of the artist in these three original graphic works which it is now my pleasure to present to a wider public. In these three prints we meet a new Andy Warhol. Gone is the very deliberate sense of distance which characterised the earlier portraits, objective almost documentary in their lack of personal judgement, portraits of roles played rather than lived by people. The three portraits of Ingrid Bergman reveal Andy Warhol's personal feelings and unbounded admiration for a woman and actress whom he knew. The titles of the three prints are: "The Nun" (from "The Bells of St Mary's"), "With Hat" (from "Casablanca") and "Herself". This last title reveals just how far Andy Warhol has gone beyond the portrait of a star-role to a statement of undisguised, personal feeling in a portrait which is so strikingly beatiful as to reveal the mutual kinship between two great artists.
Cooperating with an artist who leaves nothing to chance makes great demands on one's time and patience. Once Andy Warhol engages himself in a project he becomes almost totally absorbed by the very process of artistic creativity. The boundaries of time and space are ignored, ideas exchanged and alternative approaches discussed freely and frequently despite the distance in miles between New York and Malmö. The final result convinces me that the many trips, the lengthy telephone conversations and the mutual agreement that no effort should be spared, no compromise allowed, that all these were well worth the demands of such a project. I feel deeply grateful over my good fortune in having been able, together with one of the greatest artists of our age, to honour the memory of Ingrid Bergman in this way. She now belongs to the history of truly great art."
Per-Olov Börjeson 1983