Jackie
1964
23 7/8 x 23 1/4 in. (60.6 x 59.1 cm)
Andy Warhol
United States
(Pittsburgh, PA, 1928 - 1987, New York, NY)
Object Type:
Print
Medium and Support:
Acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas
Credit Line:
Marion Stratton Gould Fund
Accession Number:
1965.7
Location: Not currently on view
Warhol often used an unorthodox approach to portraiture. He borrowed from media photographs of celebrities to construct an individual’s public image instead of using a brush to render an idiosyncratic artistic interpretation of a sitter’s appearance.
This work is part of Warhol’s “Jackie” series, which he began shortly after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. As the basis for the paintings, he first selected eight photographs from the mass-media coverage of the event. He then cropped the pictures to focus on the President’s widow, Jacqueline Kennedy. Warhol used a commercial silkscreen technique to produce multiple versions of his work. As Warhol described,
I wanted something that gave more of an assembly line effect….With silkscreening 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.
[Forman Gallery, Summer 2015]