ANDY WARHOL, PETE ROSE, PETE ROSE SERIES, SIGNED SCREEN PRINT, 1985
Andy Warhol’s Pete Rose is a print from 1985 of the acclaimed baseball player at the peak of his career. Knowing that Rose would break Ty Cobb’s prevailing all-time hits record in the coming year, the Cincinnati Art Museum commissioned Warhol to create the portrait that would commemorate the player’s historical achievement.
Scheduling conflicts meant that Rose could not sit for Warhol and instead the artist bought the rights to a photograph that appeared in an instructional manual on baseball techniques called Pete Rose on Hitting, taken by the Cincinnati photographer Gordon Bear. The print appropriates the imagery of a baseball card to frame Rose, showing the player in a right-handed batting stance. Bright yellow pervades the image, with vivid purple gestural marks and red to outline the figure.
Warhol had never heard of Rose before this work was commissioned for $100,000 and as a later work, this print plays into the artist’s reputation as a ‘business artist’. Notably his use of the baseball card format, engages with the idea of art as a saleable commodity to be commercialised and branded. Baseball cards are collectible, negotiable items that are brightly coloured and mass-produced, and this is enlarged into the realm of high art to create Warhol’s Pete Rose print.
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.
