This silkscreen print by Andy Warhol (1928-1987) suffers from an introduction of acid-based elements that have led to staining. In the top-right portion of the paper we discovered a break, and ripples have formed in the paper, caused by the mechanism used to hinge the artwork. We are very excited to work on such an iconic piece of American Art, and can’t help but notice the serendipitous timing, with the Oscars happening over the weekend.
“Warhol chose the source image for this painting of actress Elizabeth Taylor from a publicity photograph of her 1960 film, Butterfield 8. He created this portrait when Taylor was at the height of stardom, but was also very ill with pneumonia. Warhol remembered: “I started those [pictures of Elizabeth Taylor] a long time ago, when she was so sick and everyone said she was going to die. Now I’m doing them all over, putting bright colors on her lips and eyes.” Art historian Robert Rosenblum reflects on Warhol’s artistry both of technique and of selection: “the contradictory fusion of the commonplace facts of photography and the artful fictions of a painter’s retouchings was one that, in Warhol’s work, became a particularly suitable formula for the recording of those wealthy and glamorous people whose faces seem perpetually illuminated by the afterimage of a flash-bulb.” Source: warhol.org