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Lot Essay
“From Dallas, Texas, the flash apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1pm Central Standard Time. 2 o’clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago. Vice President Lyndon Johnson has left the hospital in Dallas but we do not know to where he has proceeded, presumably he will be taking the oath of office shortly and become the 36th President of the United States”—Walter Cronkite breaking the news of President Kennedy’s death on CBS News, November 22, 1963.
At 12.30pm on Friday, November 22, 1963, a shot rang out from the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas fatally wounding John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States. This event sent shock waves not only through America, but also the world and became one of the defining moments of modern American history. Among those effected by the drama unfolding on television was Andy Warhol, but rather than join in the profound sense of grief that overwhelmed his fellow citizens, the artist had a different, typically Warholian, reaction “Well,” he is reported to have said to his studio assistant Gerald Malanga, “let’s get to work” (A. Warhol, quoted by T. Scherman & D. Dalton, Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol, New York, 2009, p. 185). For Warhol, the events in Dallas were not so much a personal or political crisis, but they were more a media event and he watched, fascinated, as the public reacted to what they
saw on TV. “I don’t think I missed a stroke… It didn’t bother me that much that he was dead. What bothered me was the way television and radio were programming everyone to feel so sad. It seemed no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t get away from the thing” (A. Warhol, quoted by T. Scherman & D. Dalton, ibid.).
Warhol’s response was a series of portraits not of the President, but of Jacqueline Kennedy, the First Lady showing her a couple of hours before the assassination and in the days immediately following the tragic events in Dallas. The range of her emotions—from her smiling face beaming out from underneath her famous ‘pillbox’ hat, to her heavily veiled expression on the day of the funeral, demonstrated just what the American people had lost, the dream of what Camelot had promised snuffed out in an instant by an assassin’s bullet.
Warhol used a number of press photographs taken during the events in Dallas as the source material for this series. He then cropped each image to drive the First Lady’s face forward to fill the entire picture plane. He then screen these images onto canvases prepared with a number of different colored grounds—a poignant blue, a warm off-white and even shimmering gold. Each image was then screened onto the canvas, with the integrity of the screening process producing a variety of effects ranging from strong, powerful images of Kennedy, to more ghostly apparitions which highlight the fragility of life. The result is a series which captures the drama and emotion of the events in Dallas, and showing the former First Lady dealing stoically with the heart-breaking emotion of those dark days. As the artist's friend and biographer, David Bourdon, writes: “By cropping in on Mrs. Kennedy's face, Warhol emphasized the heavy emotional toll during those tragic closing days in November. The so-called Jackie Portraits, far from displaying any indifference on Warhol's part to the assassination, clearly reveal how struck he was by her courage during the ordeal" (D. Bourdon, Warhol, New York, 1989, p. 181).
Because Warhol completed his Jackie paintings so soon after the death of the President, and while the country was still in a period of mourning, these paintings transcend the realm of mere portraiture to become a larger commentary on news media itself. After, Walter Cronkite confirmed the news to a shocked nation, America was consumed with grief and Jackie Kennedy became a stand-in for the country’s sadness, an archetype for a nation in mourning. Images of Kennedy’s widow flooded television screen and newspapers for days and through the mechanical action of the silkscreen process, Warhol mimics this endless repetition of the printing press, actively repeating an image designed specifically for mass consumption by the public. By commenting on the commodification of information, Warhol draws parallels between images of tragedy and images of advertising, connecting Jackie to the famous Campbell’s Soup Cans of 1962. But the endless repetition of the images from Kennedy’s death had another effect. Through excessive duplication, the power of the image is eroded, dulling the emotional impact of the event. Warhol commented directly on this modern paradox of replication, "The more you look at the same exact thing, the more the meaning goes away and the better and emptier you feel" (A. Warhol quoted in POPism: The Warhol Sixties, New York, 1980, p. 50).
At 12.30pm on Friday, November 22, 1963, a shot rang out from the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas fatally wounding John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States. This event sent shock waves not only through America, but also the world and became one of the defining moments of modern American history. Among those effected by the drama unfolding on television was Andy Warhol, but rather than join in the profound sense of grief that overwhelmed his fellow citizens, the artist had a different, typically Warholian, reaction “Well,” he is reported to have said to his studio assistant Gerald Malanga, “let’s get to work” (A. Warhol, quoted by T. Scherman & D. Dalton, Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol, New York, 2009, p. 185). For Warhol, the events in Dallas were not so much a personal or political crisis, but they were more a media event and he watched, fascinated, as the public reacted to what they
saw on TV. “I don’t think I missed a stroke… It didn’t bother me that much that he was dead. What bothered me was the way television and radio were programming everyone to feel so sad. It seemed no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t get away from the thing” (A. Warhol, quoted by T. Scherman & D. Dalton, ibid.).
Warhol’s response was a series of portraits not of the President, but of Jacqueline Kennedy, the First Lady showing her a couple of hours before the assassination and in the days immediately following the tragic events in Dallas. The range of her emotions—from her smiling face beaming out from underneath her famous ‘pillbox’ hat, to her heavily veiled expression on the day of the funeral, demonstrated just what the American people had lost, the dream of what Camelot had promised snuffed out in an instant by an assassin’s bullet.
Warhol used a number of press photographs taken during the events in Dallas as the source material for this series. He then cropped each image to drive the First Lady’s face forward to fill the entire picture plane. He then screen these images onto canvases prepared with a number of different colored grounds—a poignant blue, a warm off-white and even shimmering gold. Each image was then screened onto the canvas, with the integrity of the screening process producing a variety of effects ranging from strong, powerful images of Kennedy, to more ghostly apparitions which highlight the fragility of life. The result is a series which captures the drama and emotion of the events in Dallas, and showing the former First Lady dealing stoically with the heart-breaking emotion of those dark days. As the artist's friend and biographer, David Bourdon, writes: “By cropping in on Mrs. Kennedy's face, Warhol emphasized the heavy emotional toll during those tragic closing days in November. The so-called Jackie Portraits, far from displaying any indifference on Warhol's part to the assassination, clearly reveal how struck he was by her courage during the ordeal" (D. Bourdon, Warhol, New York, 1989, p. 181).
Because Warhol completed his Jackie paintings so soon after the death of the President, and while the country was still in a period of mourning, these paintings transcend the realm of mere portraiture to become a larger commentary on news media itself. After, Walter Cronkite confirmed the news to a shocked nation, America was consumed with grief and Jackie Kennedy became a stand-in for the country’s sadness, an archetype for a nation in mourning. Images of Kennedy’s widow flooded television screen and newspapers for days and through the mechanical action of the silkscreen process, Warhol mimics this endless repetition of the printing press, actively repeating an image designed specifically for mass consumption by the public. By commenting on the commodification of information, Warhol draws parallels between images of tragedy and images of advertising, connecting Jackie to the famous Campbell’s Soup Cans of 1962. But the endless repetition of the images from Kennedy’s death had another effect. Through excessive duplication, the power of the image is eroded, dulling the emotional impact of the event. Warhol commented directly on this modern paradox of replication, "The more you look at the same exact thing, the more the meaning goes away and the better and emptier you feel" (A. Warhol quoted in POPism: The Warhol Sixties, New York, 1980, p. 50).