Thursday, March 3, 2011

Andy Warhol Polaroid Portraits



















A friend recently mentioned that he keeps the Andy Warhol Polaroid portrait of Yves Saint Laurent in a box....  So I searched for my favorite Andy Polaroids and found more than a handful which I would be thrilled to have on view on my walls. Below is a selection of 15 out of the many more that are brilliant portrayals of the famous and fabulous he painted. 

Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University; the Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and the Weatherspoon Art Museum recently organized an exhibit called "Big Shots: Andy Warhol Polaroids".

""Big Shots: Andy Warhol Polaroids" provides insight into the artist who sought to capture the world like a camera. The exhibition includes about 250 Polaroids and 70 silver gelatin black-and-white prints taken by Warhol from 1970 to 1987, many of them on public view for the first time.

"Big Shots: Andy Warhol Polaroids" reveals an important dimension of Warhol's process in creating his famous large-scale portraits. Although his Polaroids served as aids for painting portraits, in and of themselves they are significant works and represent a relatively unknown body of Warhol's work. At the Nasher Museum, the exhibition includes his portraits of Patsy, Andrea, Joan and Nancy Nasher, accompanied by the original Polaroid studies. A selection of Warhol films from the 1960s will also be part of the exhibition, to help provide greater context for the photographic work. "

 
Jean Michel Basquiat


Dorothy Hamill


Arnold Schwartzenegger


John McEnro and Tatum Oneal


Jane Fonda


Dolly Parton


Robert Rauschenberg


Mick Jagger



















Truman Capote


Grace Jones


Alfred Hitchcock


Sarah Fawcett


Carolina Herrera


Martha Graham