Overview
Andy Warhol executed his first collages at the beginning of the 1960`s but it was not until 1975 that the first group of collages, the Mick Jagger, combining the aspects of design as well as those of photography of Warhol`s work, were created.
The Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac is pleased to present in collaboration with Anthony d`Offay and the Andy Warhol Foundation a group of important works by Andy Warhol, all executed between 1975 and 1986.
Andy Warhol executed his first collages at the beginning of the 1960`s but it was not until 1975 that the first group of collages, the Mick Jagger, combining the aspects of design as well as those of photography of Warhol`s work, were created. The way in which the very theatrical and physical gestures of the singer, who had been the tenant of Warhol during one summer, are concealed by the layers of indefinite colours and underline the wild aura of the idol.
Ten works of the Mick Jagger series were purchased at the end of the 70`s by the Museum in Vienna and were therefore on view to the public from very early on. These collages which portrait Mick Jagger are for sure the most celebrated once since they are a testimony of the artist`s ambition to produce a very vivid and expressive portrait with the means of new techniques.
Following the Mick Jagger, Warhol executed another very important group of work of collages, entitled Ladies and Gentlemen. This series portraits black transvestites and the method Warhol used here is to print the photographic screen on top of the collages. Andy paid a lot of attention to precision in these works. The application of lines with tracing paper on top of the original photographs highlights the details, the contours and the shadows of the faces.
Andy Warhol had the special talent to be able to grasp the right image at the right time and change it in the way convenient for him to attract all the circles of the media. The portraits of French celebrity actors such as Jean Cocteau, Isabelle Adjani or Gérard Depardieu were used for the covers of international magazines such as per example Time Magazine. The collages of Michael Jackson and those of the Beatles have been illustrated in the sleeves of their respective music albums.
Among the last portraits of Warhol were those of Lenin. In 1986 Andy saw an old photograph of Lenin which belonged to the artist Enzo Cucchi. The picture showed the young Lenin leaning against a pile of books. Instead of the usual portrait, which only shows the head and the shoulders, Warhol decided to keep the whole image by leaving out certain details during the production of the different variations of the subject. The work Red Lenin does only show the minimum: at the top the silhouette of a shaven head whilst on the bottom the hand and the book.
This group of Warhol collages finds in France a very special resonance. As a matter of fact the coloured and torn paper works of Warhol, like with the work of many of his contemporary artists, evoke the reminiscence of the last works of Henri Matisse and those of Fernand Léger, which nowadays Warhol joins as on of the undisputed masters of the 20th Century.
