Andy Warhol

Feldman & Schellmann II.138-147

By 1975, Andy Warhol was a beloved artist celebrated within society while the Rolling Stones were an adored fixture on both the music charts and the social scene. Mick Jagger inhabited the fame and glamour that Warhol lent to his subjects, so naturally a collaboration of the two luminaries was a great success. Warhol’s portfolio of ten screenprints portrayed Jagger in a myriad of positions, quite unlike his previous portraits of Marilyn Monroe or Chairman Mao, which varied in color scheme but repeated the identical frontal pose. Also, for the first time, Warhol’s source material was his own, as the images are based on photographs the artist himself took of the singer rather than appropriating a publicity still or a book cover. Although it became a signature aesthetic of Warhol to employ blocks of color and freeform drawing, the elements of collage and sketched features lent a sense of movement to the images that echoed the energy Jagger brought to every stage performance.