Andy Warhol

(Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1928 - 1987, New York, New York)

North America, American

Warhol brought the use of serial imagery in art to a new level during the 1960s and 1970s. Depicting mundane everyday objects, celebrities and disasters, he repeated the same images over and over, often placing them together in a grid pattern. These prints were made using silkscreen—an impersonal commercial printing method normally employed to create posters and other widely reproduced images. Warhol chose silkscreen, a stenciling method in which a design is transferred to a fine fabric, blank areas are coated with an impermeable substance, and ink is then pushed through the open areas of the fabric to transfer the design onto the printing surface, precisely for its repetitive nature. His multiple depictions of Mao, and other, more benign icons such as Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy Onassis, echoed the media’s myriad depictions of the same figures. Yet, variations between images still appeared, which Warhol happily emphasized.

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