Goethe (F. & S. II.270)
Goethe (F. & S. II.270)
Signed Print
Andy Warhol
£45,000-£60,000
$90,000-$130,000 Value Indicator
$80,000-$110,000 Value Indicator
¥440,000-¥590,000 Value Indicator
€50,000-€70,000 Value Indicator
$470,000-$620,000 Value Indicator
¥8,480,000-¥11,300,000 Value Indicator
$60,000-$80,000 Value Indicator
AAGR (5 years) This estimate blends recent public auction records with our own private sale data and network demand.
There aren't enough data points on this work for a comprehensive result. Please speak to a specialist by making an enquiry.
Medium: Screenprint
Edition size: 100
Year: 1982
Size: H 97cm x W 97cm
Signed: Yes
Format: Signed Print
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Auction Results
| Auction Date | Auction House | Location | Hammer Price | Return to Seller | Buyer Paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 2025 | Sotheby's London | United Kingdom | |||
| December 2023 | Lempertz, Cologne | Germany | |||
| September 2023 | Lama | United States | |||
| June 2023 | Karl & Faber | Germany | |||
| December 2022 | Ketterer Kunst Hamburg | Germany | |||
| September 2022 | Christie's London | United Kingdom | |||
| May 2020 | Christie's New York | United States |
Meaning & Analysis
Sitting within a tradition of portraits by Andy Warhol of famous historical figures, Goethe (F. & S.II.270) is a print from the artists Goethe series (1982) that shows an image of the leading cultural hero Johann Wolfgang von Geothe. Considered to be the greatest German literary figure of modern times, Goethe was a polymath who became a prominent philosopher, scientist and colour theorist. Infatuated with the concept of fame, Goethe was an apt subject for Warhol to transform into a 1980s Pop Art icon.
Goethe (F. & S. II.272) is based on a painting of Goethe by Johan Tischbein, regarded as the most famous portrait in Germany. Much like his works inspired by the Mona Lisa in 1963, Warhol takes the original iconic painting and subverts it to call into question high art ideals on originality, authorship and what constitutes the value of art. In this iteration of the image, Warhol has removed the landscape background to focus instead on Goethe’s profile, in the style of his portraits from the 1960s of Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe.
This portrait is produced with stark contrasts of colour with pops of brown, blue, orange and beige against a light pink backdrop, working to flatten the original image and render Goethe’s profile into a piece of Pop Art. Warhol also uses graphic lines to contour the image and presents a dichotomy between classical portraiture and the resulting Pop aesthetic. By staging Goethe, a figure of the classical past, as a superstar in the present, Warhol reflects on how mass media can change public perception of reality.
