Andy Warhol in Black and White Author(s): Christopher Lyon Source: MoMA, No. 50 (Winter, 1989), pp.

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on artistsof the fifties thatsuch imageryand objectshad irreversibly takentotalcontrolof visualrepresentation andpublicexperience." But millionsreadabout, and were fascinated by, disaster and celebrity. Artists like Roy Lichtenstein hadrecognized in thegraphic impact of ads and comics an untappedartistic potential. However, Warholexploited to a uniqueextent the realizationthat images alreadyinvestedwithpowerful publicmeanings couldbe madeto convey as well complexprivateemotionandthought. Theimagery presented by Warhol in eachof the five worksthatcomprisedhis first major appearance as anartist-in a displaywindowat BonwitTellerin 1961-reflects Warhol's own "desires and deficiencies," McShine suggests, "forall trafficin metaphors of metamorphosis and self-transcendence." Warhol's desireto makehimselfoverfindsa parallel, for example,in the transformation of Popeye,the subjectof one paintingin the displaywindow show, who "is madea new manby spinach (so muchso thatin Warhol's paintings,he seems to be punching the picture plane)." Warhol's infatuationwith film stars and othercelebritieseventuallyled to the creation of someof his mostfamouspaintings,suchas those of MarilynMonroe,Troy Donahue,or Elvis Presley. Warholidentified with them bothas objectsof desireandas role models.A to suchimagesareWarhol's counterpart paintings based on photos of fatal accidentsand other disasters,works that give form to our mostfundamental fears. 129 Die in Jet (Plane Crash) (1962) was the first of what would come t6 be called the Disasterpaintings.The event be ng reported wasthecrashon take-offatParisof anairplane en routeto the UnitedStates. Manyof those whodiedwerepatrons of the HighMuseum of Artin Atlanta-it was an "artworld"disaster. TheDisasterseries,mainlyderivedfromnews photos, covers a lot of ground,McShineobserves,fromcommonaccidents to globaltragedy: "In most of the works, Warhol uses repeated imagesto reinforce theobsessiveway ourthoughts to a tragedy, keepreturning andto stressthe flash of famethatthese little-known victimsachievein death,as theirpicturesare in thousands repeated of newspapers." The most powerfulof these early worksof Warhol come fromthe intersection of his obsessionswithglamoranddeath:the imagesof Marilyn Monroe and, perhapsmost affectingly, the series devoted to JacquelineKennedy.Theeventssurrounding theassassination of President Kennedyprovided Warhol with a set of images thatrepetition,in printand on screenin the days followingthe killing, made indeliblein thenational memory. Warhol's useof foundimagerydatesat least to his youth in Pittsburgh. At least one of his earlypaintings was takendirectlyfroma photograph. Significantly, thisearlywork,possibly lost,,is saidto havebeenbasedon a photoof a

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thebombing disaster, of a train station in Shanghai by the Japanesein 1937.Warhol,when a studentat Carnegie Institute,collected tear sheetsfromVogue, Life, andotherperiodicals. In the 1950s, whenWarhol workedin New York Cityas a commercial artist,he frequently borrowedillustrationsfrom the New York Public LibraryPicture Collection. He also copied from newspapers,accordingto Bert Greene,an associateandfriend.Warhol used a light box to tracepicturesandwas using an opaqueprojector by the late 1950s for drawingsandlaterfor his firstPopartworks. In these early Pop paintings,Warhol vacillated between two different techniques, as MarcoLivingstone pointsout in theexhibition publication:a loose copying, incorporating gestural handling -and exaggerated drips-a response in part to the acceptedlook of New York School painting-and a second approach,impassive in treatment, the replicating sourcematerial as closely as possible.He soon came to preferthe "cold," impassivepaintings to the more"lyrical"ones. Livingstonehas sketchedthe art-historical lineageof this style, whichwouldbecomethe characteristic look of Warhol's art:"Warhol's equationof the canvas with an appropriated imagecanbe viewedas anextensionof Marcel Duchamp's conceptof the Readymade by way of JasperJohns'spaintingsof Flags and Tar-

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gets, whichhadbeenthe subjects of considerableacclaimandcriticaldiscussionwhenthey were exhibitedat the Leo CastelliGalleryin New Yorkin 1958." The mechanical copying of images was only a beginning, however. The process of transmission also involvedchangesthatwould transform the image. Characteristically, such changeswerenot imposedby Warhol directly but insteadproceededfrom some unforeseen aspectof the process. Whenworkingwith an assistant,for example-and Warhol hadassistants fromveryearlyin hiscommercial careerhe observedthatthereis a "certainamount of of whatI'm tryingto do," misunderstanding but that he preferredthis state of affairs:
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After experimenting with various other methods of printing, including the use of a rubber stamp or woodcut, Warhol moved to silkscreening. His initial use of the hand-cut silkscreen soon gave way to use of commercially produced photo-silkscreens. Images in the Disaster series were among the earliest to be produced this way. Synthetic polymer paint was used for backgrounds; the photographic image was itself printed in oil-based enamel or occasionally vinyl ink, "usually in black," Livingstone points out, "to reinforce the association with newsprintphotographs."Warhol's exploration of color, through his inventive use of screenprinting procedures, for example, or in the late Camouflage works, added layers of meaning and a remarkable complexity of visual experience to the black-and-white foundation of his early work. In his 1980 book POPism: The Warhol '60s, written with Pat Hackett, Warhol recalled the first use of silkscreening: In August '62 1 started doing silkscreens. The rubber-stamp method I'd been using to repeat images suddenly seemed too homemade; I wanted something stronger that gave more of an assembly-line effect. Withsilkscreening, you pick a photograph, blow it up, transfer it in glue onto silk, and then roll ink across it so the ink goes through the silk but not through the glue. That way you get the same image, slightly different each time. It was all so simple-quick and chancy. I was thrilled with it. My first experiments with screens were heads of Troy Donahue and WarrenBeatty, and then when Marilyn Monroe happened to die that month, I got the idea to make screens of her beautiful face-the first Marilyns. In this recollection, elements of technique fuse with eroticism, glamor, and death. The image used for the Marilyn pictures was cropped by Warhol from a publicity still by photographerGene Kornmanfor the 1953 film Niagara. Otherwise unaltered, it is nevertheless transmuted by the peculiar alchemy of Warhol's art and becomes a contemporary icon and a reflection of our time. Warhol's own celebrity made him an appropriate subject for his paintings, and selfportraits are an important aspect of his work. In the 1981 painting Myths, he comments wryly on his own fame and on his position in American popular culture. Seen in vertical strips of repeated images are Superman, at the extreme left, Mickey Mouse and Uncle Sam in the middle, and, along the way, Howdy Doody, Greta Garbo, and the Wicked Witch of the West. The extreme right-hand column is filled with a repeated image of Warhol himself. It is a study in white and black: his whitehaired head at the very edge of the painting and the dark shadow of his face filling the frame, presenting his profile with features simplified and exaggerated by the shadow's elongation. The retiring figure of Warhol, who cast such a long shadow over the culture of his time, is elevated to the pantheon of popular heroesbut, characteristically, it is the insubstantial, distorted image of the artist that dominates the frame; Warhol himself remains obscured. Off to one side. Observing.

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Above: Andy Warhol. Jackie (The Week That Was). 1963. Silkscreen ink on synthetic polymer paint on canvas. Collection Mrs. Raymond Goetz.

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Below: Andy Warhol in 1964. Photo: Ken Heyman Archive Pictures Inc.
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