Self-Portrait

If you want to know about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it.
—Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol’s paintings of movie stars, celebrities and other pop-icons have become central to his oeuvre; however, his self-portraits are perhaps some of the most captivating. Intimately scaled, Self-Portrait (1967) proffers rare insight into the artist’s true persona. With its dramatic color palette, consisting of a black shadow cast across the artist’s face silkscreened onto a striking red ground, Warhol presents himself in three-quarter profile, as the outline of his facial features merges with and dissolves into the background leaving only an enigmatic silhouette of the contour of his features that occupies and fills nearly the entire pictorial space. In his diary, Warhol famously wrote that when he painted his self-portraits, he would deliberately simplify and hide any of his imperfections. “Always omit the blemishes,” Warhol wrote. “They’re not part of the good picture you want” (A. Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again, New York, 1975, p. 62). However, while Self-Portrait blurs out any imperfections, it still successfully renders Warhol’s likeness as enticing. It presents “an extremely memorable image,” where on one hand Warhol “minimizes the amount of visual stimulation and to a large extent the viewer’s experience becomes one of color, surface, treatment and mood,” but on the other is able to suggest his own interiority (S. F. Hilberry, “Two Andy Warhol Self-Portraits”, Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts, vol. 50, no. 4, 1971, p. 63).
While self-portraits have been a common genre of painting for centuries, they take on an entirely new meaning in the case of Warhol. By creating his self-portraits in the same vein as his portrayals of Hollywood stars, Warhol not only situates himself within the same celebrity community, but he also underscores the superficiality and reduction of character that mass media produces. Therefore, while self-portraits of famous historical artists such as Vincent van Gogh or Gustave Courbet sought to showcase the personality and character of the artist or sitter, Warhol’s self-portraits eschew that depth through their exaggerated stylization and by erasing any individuating facial details. This particular 1967 painting however, displays a vulnerability that is rare in Warhol’s self-portraiture as he appears to let his usual “mask” slip and reveal his true self. In contrast to his other self-portraits, in which the artist appears to be projecting a performative version of himself, this particular work stands out as a glimpse of the true Warhol – shy, timid and reserved; the picture becomes an incredibly intimate and honest depiction of Warhol’s face, demurely turning away from the viewer.
Warhol’s other self-portraits, such as his 1963 picture commissioned by Florence Barron, or his later 1986 visage in a fright wig, all depict the artist as adopting a different persona, an alter-ego of the artist that Warhol wanted to be. In both of these works we see props like sunglasses, a coat and a wig distracting from and obscuring Warhol’s face. Viewers are intentionally denied access to the real Andy Warhol and instead are presented with a performative and artificial act. In fact, many accounts of Warhol’s acquaintances and Factory employees assert that Warhol was obsessed with his own external image and took great care to maintain his look. Famously self-conscious of his balding, he often wore a silver wig and was spotted wearing sunglasses at night. Warhol’s carefully manicured image, his elusive persona and curated façade were of great importance to the artist, soon becoming some of the main motifs within his oeuvre.
Nevertheless, the present lot surprises with an unexpected insight into Andy Warhol’s true personality. Its intimate size renders this painting an important example of the artist’s iconic self-portraiture and demands a powerful emotional response, as it tackles the superficial philosophy that Warhol so adamantly professed to uphold.