Art Pick of the Week ... Marilyn by Andy Warhol

As I've mention before, I'm an Architecture and Fine Art student and it is only "natural" that I would want to share my love for art and architecture. I decided to start " Art Pick of the Week" which will feature one of my favorite paintings and a short story behind it. Hopefully it is something that will be enjoyed :)

Andy Warhol
Marilyn, 1964
Silk - screen, ink and acrylic on canvas.

When Warhol began putting Jacqueline Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe onto the canvas in silk - screen prints, creating entire series of these pictures, painting entered realms that had certainly never before been associated with painting. Warhol's pictures have nothing whatsoever to do with painting in the classical sense. He deliberately depersonalized the art work, and in all his portrait series the origins of the images in a commercial print and the technical process of production are clearly evident.

This Marilyn picture is based on photograph which has been enlarged and silk - screened onto the canvas. Warhol often let the actual printing and colouring of his pictures to his assistants, thereby negating the identity of the person portrayed as well as the individuality of the artist who designed and executed the art work.Warhol's presentation of the isolated, enlarged individual image underlines the status of her as an idol. In sequence of several different work processes, the photo was reproduced by superimposing monochrome silk-screens in different colours. This has in no way detracted from Monroe's appeal: the blonde hair, the sensually painted lips, the eye-shadowed lids covering a mysterious gaze, and the arch of the eyebrows.

Versace

Lanvin