Andy Warhol's Tributes to the Famous

The best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do.

—Andy Warhol 

A few weeks ago, a 1982 portrait of Princess Diana, created by Andy Warhol (1928-1987), was sold by Phillips Auction House for £1,258,000 (about 1,636,976 USD). Earlier this year, Phillips offered another Portrait of Princess Di that sold for over £2,000,000.

 

Warhol focused much of his works on people who achieved fame. His subjects did not necessarily attain their fame through good deeds or great accomplishments; they were famous for a variety of reasons from their ability to sing (like Mick Jagger) to their becoming martyred  (like St. Apollonia, the parton Saint of Dentistry).

 

In 1986, Warhol created a series of diamond-dusted portraits of the only four reigning queens at that time.  The Royal Edition series included portraits of Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, Queen Ntombi Tfwala of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.

 

 

The Edition was purchased by the Paleis Het Loo museum in the Netherlands and will be on display until January 1, 2025. Princess Beatrix ( who abdicated the throne to her son in 2013), attended the opening of the ‘Reigning Queens’ exhibit.

 

One of the ironies of Andy Warhol’s infatuation with fame is that he remains one of the most famous artists in the world and his works are some of the most sought after. 

 

Andy Warhol’s portraits  of St. Apollonia and Mick Jagger are available at Surovek Gallery, as well as his unique Portraits of the Artists, composed of 100 boxes depicting artists represented by the Castelli Gallery in New York, including Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Larry Poons, James Rosenquist, Frank Stella, Lee Bontecou, Robert Morris, Donald Judd, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol himself.

 

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Wolf Kahn died on March 15, 2020, at the age of 92. He died at his home in New York, just 95 days after the death of his artist wife, Emily Mason, to whom he was married for 62 years. 

 

Kahn painted glorious landscapes of the areas around his summer home in Brattleboro, Vermont. He would do preliminary works in Vermont and return to his studio in New York to complete each painting.

 

 

Kahn is remembered, not just for his paintings, but also for his kindness. Diana Urbaska, who worked as Kahn’s assistant for thirty years wrote, in a tribute in the Brooklyn Rail,  “…he treated us all with great kindness and generosity. Wolf hated change; having been a refugee from the Holocaust, he valued the stability we gave him. And, of course, we were all fiercely loyal. We’d do anything for him and Emily, because we loved them, they were like family to us. It was an honor and a joy to be a part of their close circle, and I miss them both dearly.”

 

Kahn served in the U.S. Navy and, in 2017 was awarded the International Medal of Art by the U.S. State Department.

 

His works are in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Met, the Whitney and many other museums and galleries. 

 

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Please contact us if you would like more information about the works of Andy Warhol and Wolf Kahn available at Surovek Gallery.

 

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October 18, 2024