WARHOL, ANDY
1928 Pittsburgh, PA/USA–1987 New York

Title: Goethe.
Date: 1982.
Technique: Set of four colour silkscreens on Lenox museum board.
Depiction Size: Each 96.5 x 96.5 cm.
Notation: Each: Signed and numbered.
Publisher: Edition Schellmann & Klüser, Munich; Denise René/Hans Mayer, Düsseldorf (publisher).
Number: Complete matching set. Ex. 15/100.


The sheets bear the dry stamp of the printer, Rupert Jasen Smith, New York. On the reverse is the copyright stamp of the artist and the publisher



Provenance:
- - Galerie Jöllenbeck, Cologne

- Sparkasse Essen (according to the consignor, acquired from the previous owner in 1983)


Literature:
- Feldman, Frayda/Schellmann, Jörg: Andy Warhol Prints, A Catalogue Raisonné 1962–1987, Milan 2003 (4th ed.), WVZ No. II.270–273



- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the epitome of German Classicism, is transformed into a Pop Art icon through Warhol’s

reinterpretation

- Based on Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein’s painting *Goethe in the Roman Campagna*, which is held by the Städel Museum in Frankfurt

- The famous portrait appears as a coveted consumer item in four attractive colour variations



Warhol’s Visual Language

No other artist has inscribed himself into art history as the dazzling leading figure of Pop Art quite like Andy Warhol, whose self-stylization formed an integral part of his artistic strategy. Warhol sought to intensify the discrepancy between the “self” and the “image,” between “being” and “appearance,” through art by subjecting the production and reception of his works to the commercial modalities of consumer goods.

In 1962, Warhol began reproducing press photographs and images of celebrities from newspapers and magazines using the silkscreen printing process. He simplified and transformed these familiar images circulating as part of everyday culture through the use of high-contrast colors and flat forms in a style reminiscent of poster art. Accordingly, his visual language aligned itself with the visual stimuli of advertising, while he advanced the industrial production of silkscreens in his legendary New York Factory, thereby emphasizing the commodity value of his creations. In doing so, he juxtaposed artistic value creation with the serial production of mass goods, imbuing his works with an aura of banality and insignificance.

Warhol reproduced media image templates, detached from their original context, so frequently that the depicted subjects and motifs lost their original meaning and expressive significance, circulating instead as mere reproductions devoid of relevance. “I simply let my eyes feel the shapes, and if you look at something long enough, then, I discovered, the meaning disappears” (Andy Warhol, quoted in Kenneth Goldsmith (ed.), Interviews with Andy Warhol (1962–1987), Schmieheim 2005, pp. 39–40).



A Prominent Portrait from Frankfurt’s Städel Museum

The present four-part series of portrait serigraphs was issued in 1982 in an edition of 100 numbered sets. Warhol had been commissioned by the German publisher Siegfried Unseld to execute his portrait and traveled to Frankfurt in 1980 to take preparatory photographs. During this stay, Warhol visited the Städel Museum, where he encountered the most famous painting by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein: Goethe in the Roman Campagna (1786/87). Unseld persuaded him to include the German thinker in his portrait gallery as well.

For the life-sized portrait, Tischbein depicted Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in a contemplative pose, seated among the ruins of ancient architecture and reflecting upon the fate of human achievements. Since its first public presentation, this portrayal has shaped the prevailing image of Goethe. It has also been widely copied and circulated through engravings. Thus, not only the subject itself but also the painting has achieved iconic fame. Warhol clearly pays tribute to this prominence, foregrounding its iconic significance for the perception of the poet.



Goethe Between Educational Ideal and Image Cult

By drawing upon the rich variety of coloristic tonal values to reinterpret the motif of the slightly inclined head in quarter profile beneath the expansive hat in numerous attractive color variations, Warhol appropriates Tischbein’s painting in its capacity as an image. Yet despite the strong emphasis on seductive surface appeal, one may assume that Warhol’s appropriation of Tischbein’s Goethe portrait subtly alludes to the conceptual layer of the celebrated original.

Whereas in Tischbein’s work the ruined architecture in the background points to the transience of artistic achievement, Warhol likewise appears to topple a representative of high culture from its pedestal into the realm of “low” everyday culture. Goethe, the Weimar poet-prince known as an emblem of German Classicism, takes his place among the ranks of pop-cultural icons in Warhol’s oeuvre, which includes not only Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, and Elvis Presley, but also the Campbell's Soup Cans and the dollar sign. Warhol’s appropriation of Tischbein’s famous portrait may therefore be read both as a critique of media culture and as a casual commentary on the fragility of so-called high culture, caught between image worship and the ideal of education.

Bettina Haiss





Under the motto “For Children in Essen,” the proceeds from the auction will be split equally between the University Medical Foundation and the Essen Child Protection Association.

The University Medical Foundation will use the donation to create a special lounge and play area in the new children’s hospital. This will provide a place that offers young patients moments of comfort amid the stressful daily routine of the hospital and gives families a space to relax. An adjacent family-friendly care area with a kitchen can help make daily hospital life a bit more humane and pleasant, especially for children with cancer, whose well-being is often severely affected by treatment.



The Essen Child Protection Association is using the donation to build a new child protection shelter. There, traumatized children who are beaten, psychologically abused, or neglected at home—whose parents are overwhelmed, ill, or addicted to drugs—are taken into care. In particular, the Child Protection Association also offers safety and stability to children who have experienced sexual violence in their families. The child protection shelter enables them to recover from stressful life situations and to focus on their personal development with confidence in the long term, without being constantly exposed to stress and uncertainty.



Estimated shipping costs for this lot:
The lot is unsuitable for parcel shipping. Transport only by shipping company after consultation following the auction.

additional shipping insurance


Shipping insurance

up to total invoice amount of 25,000 Euros: max. 41.65 Euro

over a total invoice amount of 25,000 Euros: 1.8 o/oo


USA by individual arrangement after the auction.




#Andy Warhol #Pop Art #Photographs #USA #Post-War Art #Print #Celebrities #1980s #Silkscreen.



This lot will be sold under standard taxation (Condition of Sale §V5.1)







In accordance with §26 UrhG (German Copyright Act), VAN HAM is obliged to pay a statutory resale royalty on the sale proceeds of all original works of fine art and photography whose authors have not been deceased for 70 years prior to the end of the calendar year of the sale. The buyer shall contribute 1.5% of the hammer price to this fee.