Andy Warhol

The complete portfolio, comprising six unique screenprints in colours with diamond dust, 1979, each signed and dated in pencil verso, numbered 6/10 verso (total edition includes 2 artist's proofs), printed by Rupert Jasen Smith, New York, with his blindstamp, published by Andy Warhol, New York, with his copyright stamp, on Arches 88 paper, each framed 

The full sheets, in good, fresh condition, very pale discoloration at some of the extreme sheet edges, each framed. Minor imperfections to individual sheets are: Silver and green (F. & S. II.210): two minor handling marks in the silver at lower centre (only visible upon close inspection), a couple of very inconspicuous scuff marks in the silver (only visible in a raking light), the verso very slightly toned. Green and gold (F. & S. II. 211): the gold with a few inconspicuous surface scuffs (only visible in a raking light) and some finger marks along the left of the image (possibly inherent to the production), a minor handling mark at lower left, a tiny accretion in the green at lower right. Silver and blue (F. & S. II.212): a very slight undulation in the sheet.
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When Andy Warhol first exhibited his Shadows series in 1979, critics grasped for signs of the concrete objects that cast the shadows. ‘Maybe it’s a picture of a water faucet and maybe it’s a golf cart’ one suggested, whilst another saw ‘a pilot light’ and ‘bunny rabbits’ (G. Battcock, ‘Heiner Friedrich Gallery, New York’, Domus 597, 1979, p. 56). These reactions demonstrate the initial challenge Shadows presented, in that the compositions are ambiguous and evade classification. They sit provocatively on the boundary between form and shapelessness. While various theories on the identity of the subject matter continue to proliferate, the key to these prints does not lie in the subject.

Based on a series of photographs of shadows that Warhol’s assistant Ronnie Cutrone took in the Factory, the six works that make up Shadows II are ‘screenprints of photographs of shadows of objects’ (J. Watson, ‘Reality and Simulcra in Andy Warhol’s Shadows, Rutgers Art Review: The Journal of Graduate Research in Art History 30, 2014, p. 73). Warhol undertook an extreme and complex process of abstraction as he moved further away from simple subjectivity. The final forms no longer visually reference the objects that cast the initial shadows. The forms have dematerialised and are thus distanced from any referential, human context. Indeed, Warhol himself called the series ‘disco décor’, accentuating the decorative surface of the prints and further discouraging a thematic analysis of the content. Taking the lead from Warhol, therefore, the importance of Shadows II lies in its surface, in the subtle nuance of colour in the diamond dust, in the play of light and dark and matte and sparkle, and in the blown-up, exaggerated scale.

Seemingly distant from his soup cans, the subjectlessness and focus on surface in Shadows II are, in fact, the realisation of Warhol’s eternal search for ‘a purposefully made image of nothing’ (L. Cooke, ‘Andy Warhol: Shadows’ in Robert Lehman Lectures on Contemporary Art, New York, 2004, p. 89). Warhol was principally and consistently preoccupied with surface. Shadows II epitomises the artist’s statement: ‘if you want to know all about Andy Warhol just look at the surface of my paintings…there’s nothing behind it’ (Warhol cited in K. Goldsmith, I’ll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews 1962-1987, New York, 2004, p. 85).