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ANDY WARHOL
(American, 1928-1987)
Self-Portrait, 1966
Silkscreen on silver coated paper, 152/300
23 1/16 x 23”
Gift of Rev. Edwin B. Fountain 1987.10.2

Andy Warhol, the Pop artist who raised celebrity to an art form, is now one of the best-known artists of all time. A Pittsburgh native, he studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology from 1945-1949. He began his professional career in New York City, where he worked as an illustrator and commercial artist for newspapers and magazines. His experience with printed media would pervade his artwork for many years to come. Inspired by the most mundane of consumer commodities, from Campbell soup cans and Brillo boxes to Marilyn and Elvis, Warhol’s wide-ranging interests pervaded American popular culture: in addition to being a painter, printmaker, and filmmaker, he was also a magazine publisher (Interview) and a music producer (The Velvet Underground). In his self-portrait, Warhol gazes pensively at the camera. His fingers screen his mouth, and his head, which dissolves into black shadow on one side, is barely perceptible in silver on the other. This mechanically reproduced silkscreen not only eliminates evidence of the artist’s touch, or his physical presence, but it also disguises his emotional presence. Distant and impersonal, this work is at once a self-portrait of—and a metaphor for—the impassive prince of Pop. As he said, “If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface … there’s nothing behind it.”