An Offering
We are pleased to present the 1965 Andy Warhol Painting, Self-Portrait (red), available for sale for the first time, from the original owner. This is one in a series of only ten, perhaps the only work of Warhol in which each of the original owners has been identified, according to a 2010 article in the New York Review of Books, by Richard Dormant.
The painting belongs to the family of Alan Fenton, a fellow artist and colleague who was gifted the painting by the artist. The painting has been meticulously boxed and stored for over 25 years. Please refer to the condition report for further details. Prior to storage, the work was framed and hung in the family home since acquisition in the mid-1960’s.
Self-Portrait (red) has been hailed as a watershed piece as it was the first time on record that Andy opted for production outside of his studio, allowing for mechanical imperfections to became uniform in the mass production that was to define his oeuvre. In fact, according to Andy’s biographer, esteemed historian and author of his first Catalog Raisonne, Rainer Crone, he and Andy specifically chose this piece for the cover of the Catalog Raisonne because it exemplified this transition from the early hand painted reproductions into the hands-off, remote relationship with art characteristic of Andy’s work into the 1970’s.
Calling into question, “Who really done it?” the history of this group of self-portraits reveals a Warholian spectacle, sparking multimedia attention, international debate, federal lawsuits and ultimately the collapse of the Andy Warhol Authentication board. All this squaring the irony of what Warhol spent his life building – a platform upon which the artist is anonymous, immaterial and interchangeable - exhibited by one of his inimitable paradoxical inscriptions – “This is not an Andy Warhol. Signed, Andy Warhol.”
The painting belongs to the family of Alan Fenton, a fellow artist and colleague who was gifted the painting by the artist. The painting has been meticulously boxed and stored for over 25 years. Please refer to the condition report for further details. Prior to storage, the work was framed and hung in the family home since acquisition in the mid-1960’s.
Self-Portrait (red) has been hailed as a watershed piece as it was the first time on record that Andy opted for production outside of his studio, allowing for mechanical imperfections to became uniform in the mass production that was to define his oeuvre. In fact, according to Andy’s biographer, esteemed historian and author of his first Catalog Raisonne, Rainer Crone, he and Andy specifically chose this piece for the cover of the Catalog Raisonne because it exemplified this transition from the early hand painted reproductions into the hands-off, remote relationship with art characteristic of Andy’s work into the 1970’s.
Calling into question, “Who really done it?” the history of this group of self-portraits reveals a Warholian spectacle, sparking multimedia attention, international debate, federal lawsuits and ultimately the collapse of the Andy Warhol Authentication board. All this squaring the irony of what Warhol spent his life building – a platform upon which the artist is anonymous, immaterial and interchangeable - exhibited by one of his inimitable paradoxical inscriptions – “This is not an Andy Warhol. Signed, Andy Warhol.”