ANDY WARHOL, ADS (COMPLETE SET), SIGNED SCREEN PRINTS, EDITION OF 190, 1985
Warhol produced the Ads portfolio two years before his death in 1985. Commissioned by Feldman Fine Arts, the suite is comprised of 10 limited edition screen prints on Lennox Museum Board. It includes works titled Apple, Blackglama (Judy Garland), Chanel, Life Savers, Mobil, Paramount, Rebel Without a Cause (James Dean), The New Spirit (Donald Duck), Van Heusen (Ronald Reagan) and Volkswagen. In many ways this highly collectible series epitomises Warhol. A series of images depicting the icons of American consumer culture, celebrated in vivid technicolour, this is pure Pop Art.
The Ads portfolio is an acclaimed series and a catalogue of Warhol’s interests across his career. Its subjects cover film, celebrity, glamour, fashion, television and advertising. By turning mass media imagery into art, Warhol elevated the everyday, celebrating the democratisation of popular consumer culture. As the artist himself once said, “what’s great about this country is America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too.”
Find out more about Ads by Andy Warhol.
ABOUT ANDY WARHOL
Andy Warhol (born Andrew Warhola) is a name synonymous with the celebrity culture and mass consumerism which coloured the boulevards of New York City in the Post World War II era. Born into a working class immigrant family in the urban landscape around the bustling metropolis, Warhol’s early life was characterised by a climb up the capitalist rungs of society.
The artist himself noted, “buying is more American than thinking, and I’m as American as they come”, this quote came to demarcate Warhol’s artistic practice as he embraced the commodification of the American Dream. The Pop artist’s beginnings in the business sector gave him the practical skill set to experiment with a more commercial approach to art throughout his career, particularly with regards to screen printing. Read more about Andy Warhol.
