Warhol's Jews: Ten Portraits Reconsidered

by Richard Meyer, Gabriel de Guzman (Contributor)

When it first appeared in 1980, Andy Warhol’s Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century was adored by Jewish audiences even as it aroused antagonism from critics. Why did Warhol create this series? How did he select the figures to be portrayed? How has the passage of time reshaped the meaning of these portraits?   This handsomely illustrated book examines the history of these silk-screen paintings and prints, delving into Warhol’s refashioning of portraiture, his deep interest in repetitive art forms, and his embrace of commercialism. Richard Meyer shows how Warhol’s unorthodox approach to portrait painting was a product of both his seriousness as an artist and his avowed interest in making money, and he explains how Warhol selected ten figures—from Bernhardt and Buber to Freud and Kafka—who would ensure the timelessness of his series. The volume, which also includes discussions of the celebrated subjects of Ten Portraits , images of related prints, and a timeline, offers new insights into a significant series by an iconic American artist.

Genres: Art

64 pages, Hardcover

First published April 6, 2008

Reviews

[Vivian Henoch · Rating 2 out of 5]

A 64-page catalog, published in conjunction with the exhibition Warhol's Jews: Ten Portraits Reconsidered, organized by The Jewish Museum (New York March-August, 2008) and the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, October 2008-January 2009)

"The moment you label something, you take a step - I mean, you can never go back again to seeing it unlabeled." - Andy Warhol

In 1980, Andy Warhol created a series of silk screen prints and paintings titled the Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century. The subjects ranged widely across modern European and American culture from Sigmund Freud to Albert Einstein, to Franz Kafka and Gertrude Stein; from Martin Buber, Louis Brandeis and Golda Meir to Sarah Bernhardt, George Gershwin and the Marx Brothers. In contrast to Warhol's numerous portraits of socialites and celebrities from the same period, Ten Portraits of Jews were devoted exclusively to sitters who were no longer living. Each was based on an archival photograph that the artist enlarged, partially redrew and overlaid with blocks of high-contrast color. -Richard Meyer