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Lot Essay
With its distinguished features and colorful palette, Andy Wahol’s portrait of the French artist Arman, is a quintessential example of the Pop artist’s late portraits. Here, the face is handsome, the gaze direct, the eyes penetrating, the bearing dignified. Solid blocks of transparent color divide the square canvas into almost equal segments, defined by their complementary color tonalities: pink, blue, green. The translucent blocks of color enhance, rather than obscuring, the face, each color rendering a part of the face differently. Crucially, the eyes are clearly visible, and directly engage the viewer and silver tracings outline the head, the jawline, the ears, the beard, the neck. The solidity of the square format of the canvas complements the solidity of the figure. Warhol painted a great many portraits in his career, most famously representations of film gods and goddesses or other celebrities who inhabited the highest stratospheres of fame, or of wealthy collectors, but not those could be considered personal acquaintances of the artist as here, in the present work. Andy Warhol’s portraits of Jackie Kennedy or Marilyn Monroe have become iconic but the current work occupies a field that includes numerous portraits that Warhol accomplished in the 1970s and 1980s, including of fellow artists such as Arman.
Arman was an influential French-born artist who moved to and spent most of his life in America. He was a well-known figure in the worlds of art and beyond (along with Yves Klein, Arman was one of the prominent figures associated with the art movement referred to as Nouveau réalisme). But what is notable about this portrait is that Warhol and Arman were personally acquainted. They met in the early Factory years and exchanged artworks, Warhol owning at least two of Arman’s creations. Arman also appeared in one of Warhol’s films, Dinner at Daley’s, a documentary that recorded a performance by the Fluxus artist Daniel Spoerri, filmed by Warhol in1964. Arman made an unusual art piece by tearing up and displaying the now-fragmented Warhol screenprint (the process of fragmenting and assembling objects or artworks was an essential aspect of Arman’s art practice).
By the mid-1980s when the present work was created, Warhol could arguably be credited with helping to revive interest in the portrait within contemporary art, an activity that had fallen into neglect in favor of other interests and strategies among current practitioners. In part, Warhol’s interest was reinvigorated through his collaborations with younger painters such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Francesco Clemente. All three were part of a larger group of artists who used to socialize together at famous New York hotspots such as Mr. Chow’s restaurant on the Upper East Side. Both Warhol and Arman artists pursued powerful and unique styles of figuration in their own right and in the timeframe of the current work was created (1985-1986), Warhol was more prolific than at any other time. He had been asked to create a portrait of Arman by his wife, Corice Arman, an accomplished photographer, artist, art collector, and trustee on the boards of several arts institutions. Warhol had already made several portraits of Corice by this time, the earliest dating back to the 1970s. The work occupies that rare grouping of works by artists portraying their fellow artists, one artist offering his personal interpretation of the face of another artist.
Arman was an influential French-born artist who moved to and spent most of his life in America. He was a well-known figure in the worlds of art and beyond (along with Yves Klein, Arman was one of the prominent figures associated with the art movement referred to as Nouveau réalisme). But what is notable about this portrait is that Warhol and Arman were personally acquainted. They met in the early Factory years and exchanged artworks, Warhol owning at least two of Arman’s creations. Arman also appeared in one of Warhol’s films, Dinner at Daley’s, a documentary that recorded a performance by the Fluxus artist Daniel Spoerri, filmed by Warhol in1964. Arman made an unusual art piece by tearing up and displaying the now-fragmented Warhol screenprint (the process of fragmenting and assembling objects or artworks was an essential aspect of Arman’s art practice).
By the mid-1980s when the present work was created, Warhol could arguably be credited with helping to revive interest in the portrait within contemporary art, an activity that had fallen into neglect in favor of other interests and strategies among current practitioners. In part, Warhol’s interest was reinvigorated through his collaborations with younger painters such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Francesco Clemente. All three were part of a larger group of artists who used to socialize together at famous New York hotspots such as Mr. Chow’s restaurant on the Upper East Side. Both Warhol and Arman artists pursued powerful and unique styles of figuration in their own right and in the timeframe of the current work was created (1985-1986), Warhol was more prolific than at any other time. He had been asked to create a portrait of Arman by his wife, Corice Arman, an accomplished photographer, artist, art collector, and trustee on the boards of several arts institutions. Warhol had already made several portraits of Corice by this time, the earliest dating back to the 1970s. The work occupies that rare grouping of works by artists portraying their fellow artists, one artist offering his personal interpretation of the face of another artist.