Andy Warhol: Glamour and Camo

In 1965, Andy Warhol (1928-1987) opened The Factory for an event called the Fifty Most Beautiful People Party. One of those fifty people really caught his attention: “I watched as five boys carried her in off the elevator on their shoulders.” Warhol said. “It was odd because that night, for some reason, nobody seemed to notice her. I noticed her, though. I always noticed Judy Garland.”

 

Warhol created several images of Judy Garland (1922-1969), but it wasn’t until twenty years after the party, and sixteen years after her death, that he was able to merge her celebrity with his focus on consumerism; In 1985, Warhol was commissioned by Feldman Fine Arts Gallery in New York to create an “Ads Portfolio.”

 

One of his finest works from the portfolio is Judy Garland, Blackglama. The work is based on Garland’s stardom combined with one of the most successful ad campaigns in history.

 

 

Blackglama is a type of shiny, short-haired, black mink. The ad for the mink coats asked, What Becomes a Legend Most? and featured celebrities like Marlene Dietrich, Lillian Hellman, Mary Martin, Ethel Merman, Judy Garland…and Garland’s daughter, Liza Minnelli. The celebrities were paid with the fur coats that they modeled.

 

Judy Garland, Blackglama is a tribute by Warhol to a woman he greatly admired. “To meet a person like Judy whose real was so unreal was a thrilling thing.” he said, “She could turn everything on and off in a second; she was the greatest actress you could imagine every second of her life.”

 

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 The last portfolio series that Warhol published before his death was the

Camouflage  Series, now available at Surovek Gallery.

 

Warhol had used the camouflage motif in other works during the 1980s. He incorporated camouflage patterns into self portraits and portraits of others.  The Camouflage Series, 1987 is made up of eight screenprints, in which he used form and fluorescent color to create abstract, yet recognizable elements.

 

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

 

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References:
Andy Warhol, with Pat Hackett, POPism: The Warhol Sixties (New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1980), 126-127.
Peter Rogers. What Becomes a Legend Most?: The Blackglama Story. Simon and Schuster, 1979.

February 20, 2026