Press Release

Skarstedt Gallery is pleased to present a selection of paintings by Andy Warhol from the 1970’s. Despite the commerciality associated with some of Warhol’s works from the seventies, amassed in this show is a group of works which touch upon what Warhol did best, the abstract Oxidations and Shadows, and the iconic Ladies and Gentlemen, Mao and Russell Means.

On one hand, there is Warhol at his purest and most ironic: the Oxidation paintings in which Warhol combined his or who knows whose urine and metallic copper pigment on canvases which resulted in these abstract oxidized masterpieces that dabble at the ever present question of authorship in his work. On the other hand, there is Andy at his most luscious; contrary to the glamorous celebrity portraits, the Ladies and Gentlemen portraits thrive within their anonymity, making a rich and lavish yet extremely personal portrait of New York’s diverse drag queen community.

Additionally, this show takes a close look at portrayals of some of the personalities who made up the canonic landscape of the 1970's; the actor and political activist Russell Means as well as Chinese communist leader, Mao Zedong. Subsequent to President Nixon's visit to China in 1972, inspired both by the communist propaganda of the East as well as the American media, Warhol created a series of works around Mao. Warhol also immortalized Indian leader Russell Means in 18 portraits, 3 of which are seen in the show. Both men depicted in a style echoing his portraits of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley, these brightly colored portraits of Mao and Russell Means, transformed these two personalities into worldwide popular icons.

Born in 1928, in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, Warhol moved to New York City in 1949 where he spent the rest of his artistic career before his untimely death in 1987. He has been the subject of a myriad of national and international one-man gallery and museum exhibitions throughout his prolific career. In 1989, the Museum of Modern Art organized a major retrospective of his work and in 2001 Heiner Bastian curated a retrospective in Berlin, which traveled to the Tate, London and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Shortly after his death, the Warhol Foundation for the Arts was founded, at his request, in order to further the advancement of the visual arts. In 1994 the Carnegie Institute and the Dia Foundation for the Arts, along with the help of the Foundation, opened the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburg.

For further information, please contact Atalanti Martinou 212.737.2060 or atalanti@skarstedt.com