John Lennon

'I was the Walrus, but now I'm John.'
(John Lennon, God, 1971)

In late 1985 Warhol was asked to produce a portrait of John Lennon for the cover of the then forthcoming Lennon album Menlove Avenue. This was a posthumous album of outtakes from Lennon's Rock'n'Roll sessions with Phil Spector in the 1970s. Released under the supervision of Lennon's widow Yoko, the title of the album referred to the name of the street in Liverpool where Lennon had grown up. Warhol produced two paintings of Lennon that were used for the front and back covers of this album. These two paintings are now owned by Yoko, but at the same time Warhol also produced this 40 x 40inch portrait of Lennon layered with coloured rectangles in the style of some of his recent iconic portraits such as those of Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov). With his unerring eye for imagery, Warhol, typically, chose one of the most iconic images of Lennon for his painting of the legendary musician and ex-Beatle, Iain Macmillan's photograph taken of the singer in 1971.

This photograph, which remains one of the most frequently used images of Lennon depicts the singer as the working-class hero/artist staring openly and directly at the viewer through his trademark National Health glasses. It is an image that mirrors the directness and nakedness of Lennon's standpoint at this time, between the Plastic Ono Band and Imagine albums. This was also the period when Lennon first moved to New York and when he and Yoko first spent time with Warhol and became friends.

It was in June 1971 that John and Yoko first explored New York together, meeting many friends and artists living there who would show them around their favourite parts of the city. Bob Dylan even persuaded John and Yoko to buy bicycles, telling them that it was the best way to get around the Village, and Warhol spent much time escorting the famous couple around his favourite antique shops and art galleries. The warmth of their welcome to the city had a lasting effect on Lennon persuading him to settle there in October 1971 while telling the British Press, 'In the States we're treated like artists, which we are! But here in Britain, it's like 1940...it's really the sticks, you know. While in New York there's these fantastic twenty or thirty artists who all understand what I'm doing and have the same kind of mind as me. It's just like heaven after being here.' (John Lennon, quoted in R. Coleman, Lennon, the Definitive Biography, London 2000, p. 583)

As David Bourdon has recalled, 'Andy's relationship with Yoko was (at first) a little strained because he remembered her strident attacks on the 'homosexual conspiracy' in the New York art world during the 1960s when she was unable to get a reputable gallery to show her contemporary art. As for the former Beatle, Warhol could not look at him without seeing dollar signs. 'They must make a million dollars a day!' Warhol exclaimed to a friend. 'I'm sure they do. Their records have to make that. Oh, it's just so much fun to have money isn't it.' (D. Bourdon, Warhol, New York 1989, p. 314)

Warhol evidently overcame his initial trepidation and reportedly attempted at this time to get the Lennon's to commission a portrait of themselves but these plans came to nought. This 1985 portrait of Lennon dates from the aftermath of Lennon's assassination in December 1980 and the near sanctification of rock star that took place in its wake. During this period, Warhol saw Yoko frequently and grew particularly close to her and John's young son Sean whose birthday parties he recalls fondly in his diaries.

In painting this portrait of Lennon, Warhol evidently knew he was making more than a mere society portrait of a celebrity but portraying an iconic figure whose legendary status had recently been magnified by his untimely death. It was perhaps for this reason that Warhol did not use a more intimate or personal photograph of Lennon, but Macmillan's iconic and somehow immediately familiar image - an image that seemed to convey both the essence and legend of Lennon.

The magnitude of feeling that swept New York and the world with the news of Lennon's death had surprised and puzzled Warhol. His own shooting by Valerie Solanis in 1968 had been overshadowed in the media, by the assassination of Bobby Kennedy the very next day. As with Warhol's reaction to the shooting of John F. Kennedy, it was primarily the way in which the media reacted to and attempted to manipulate the event that most intrigued him about Lennon's tragic death. 'The papers still have the Lennon news' he recorded two days after the event. 'The one who killed him was a frustrated artist. They brought up the Dali poster he had on his wall. They always interview the janitors and the old schoolteachers and things. The kid said the devil made him do it. And John was so rich, they say he left a $235 million estate. And the 'vigil' is still going on at the Dakota. It looked strange, I don't know what those people think their doing.' (Andy Warhol, diary entry, December 10, 1980, Pat Hackett, (ed.) The Andy Warhol Diaries, New York 1989, p. 348) A day later Warhol was even more puzzled and amused to find that during 'a moment of silence for John' the news broadcasters interrupted it to 'talk about the silence' (ibid).