Lot 56 | Andy Warhol | Beautiful Lady

Pop art icon Andy Warhol
No other artist has established himself as the personification of pop art as Andy Warhol, whose cult status was part of his artistic strategy. Hardly any other artist of the 20th century created icons of art that have become so deeply engraved in the collective memory as the American, who understood better than anyone else how to blur the line between commerce and culture. And in doing so, he was able to illustrate the great themes of humanity—love, life, and death—in simple metaphors: Marilyn Monroe, Campbell's soup, and the electric chair. Warhol's art was a direct expression of the spirit of the times and followed the prevailing market principles of capitalism.
Warhol began his career as an industrial and commercial artist, as well as a window dresser. Warhol saw early on what many only realized much later: that in a world of abundance, it is no longer uniqueness that counts, but recognizability. Familiar with the striking language of advertising, he quotes and reproduces American consumer culture. He writes: “Buying is more American than thinking, and I am as American as you can be.”
Accordingly, he drew on the abundance of people, goods, commodities, and events disseminated by the media, which he then subjected to serial reproduction, turning them into meaningless clichés of reality. Warhol constantly explores the exciting contrast between content and form, confronting even serious topics with the seductive aesthetics of the surface, sometimes allowing banality and brutality to clash.

Warhol's portrait gallery
Beyond the great iconic motifs, there is an often overlooked chapter in his work: private commissioned portraits. Andy Warhol's most important dealer in Europe, Swiss gallery owner Bruno Bischofsberger, had already suggested in 1967 that the prominent ranks of “Celebrity Portraits” be expanded to include unknown protagonists. He recalls "convincing Warhol to begin the large series of private portraits, which ultimately became his main source of income. [...] I had the idea that Warhol should make portraits of people who were willing to be photographed. He liked the idea and told me enthusiastically that it would give him a ‘Galerie Contemporaine’, like the picture books of famous personalities created by Nadar, Etienne Carjat, and other photographers in France in the mid-19th century." (Osterwold, Tilman (ed.): Collaborations: Warhol, Basquiat Clemente, Ostfildern-Ruit, 1996, p.108ff)
By the 1980s, Warhol had long since transformed from an autonomous artist into a service provider who fulfilled his commissions in a factory-like studio—the legendary ‘Factory’—with the help of assistants. The choice of subjects became part of a business-savvy production method in which Warhol's artistic signature, which had become his trademark, was highly valued as a status symbol. Those who did not particularly interest Warhol artistically, but were able to pay the fixed unit price, were also portrayed in a standard size of 40 x 40 inches (approx. 101 x 101 cm).

A Beautiful Lady
This portrait is a veritable rarity within this “Galerie Contemporaine.” Occasionally, Warhol himself decided who he wanted to portray, as was the case here. In the 1980s, a business assignment took the subject, who lived in Germany, on numerous trips, including to New York and the Factory. Andy Warhol suggested a portrait to her. He was immediately fascinated by her appearance, her style, her charisma. With her dark, flowing hair and her natural elegance, she embodied exactly the type of woman who inspired Warhol—a mixture of exoticism, eccentricity, and glamour. (Fig.) Unlike many of his clients, she did not want the picture herself. But Warhol persisted and she finally gave in, on the condition that her name would not be mentioned in the title. Warhol therefore simply called the work “Beautiful Lady.” In accordance with his usual procedure, a photo session took place in which an unusually large number of Polaroids—46—were taken within five hours. From these templates, Warhol selected the final motif to be realized using his famous screen printing process. (Fig.) The painting remained in her private possession for 40 years and can now be offered on the art market as a new item.
The work is as simple as it is effective in its composition. With his characteristic technique, reminiscent of poster art or comic drawings, the portrait was executed in a flat style with high contrast in black, red, and powder pink to emphasize the striking features of the subject: her full, black hair and bright red mouth. In addition, the eyes and hair are structured with dynamic internal contours, whose color gradient transitions from turquoise to blue and violet to soft pink, lending the work a sense of movement. As is so often the case with Warhol, the result is ambivalent, lying somewhere between seduction and distance, between realism and ideal. The “Beautiful Lady” is both an individual and a symbol. The work not only shows a portrait of a woman, but also represents Warhol himself—his gaze, his fascination with beauty, and above all his conviction that anyone can be a superstar if only the right image of them exists.
Bettina Haiss