1963, Andy Warhol, Triple Elvis -- Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond)
From the museum label:
"In my art work, hand painting would take much too long and anyway that's not the age we're living in. Mechanical means are today... Silkscreen work is as honest a method as any, including hand painting." -Andy Warhol
Warhol based this macho signer-turned-gunslinger portrait of Elvis Presley on a publicity photograph for the 1960 western, Flaming Star. This public persona, as carefully packaged as Campbell's Soup, was ideally suited to Warhol's aim to focus on surface appearance rather than psychological interpretation. Warhol's repetition of identical images and his silkscreen technique often allude to the pervasiveness of consumer culture. The overlapping multiple figures here also suggest individual film frames and cinematic motion, while the work's metallic background evokes Hollywood's silver screen.
1963, Andy Warhol, Triple Elvis -- Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond)
From the museum label:
"In my art work, hand painting would take much too long and anyway that's not the age we're living in. Mechanical means are today... Silkscreen work is as honest a method as any, including hand painting." -Andy Warhol
Warhol based this macho signer-turned-gunslinger portrait of Elvis Presley on a publicity photograph for the 1960 western, Flaming Star. This public persona, as carefully packaged as Campbell's Soup, was ideally suited to Warhol's aim to focus on surface appearance rather than psychological interpretation. Warhol's repetition of identical images and his silkscreen technique often allude to the pervasiveness of consumer culture. The overlapping multiple figures here also suggest individual film frames and cinematic motion, while the work's metallic background evokes Hollywood's silver screen.