Andy Warhol: Portraits

This book is what it says on the tin: a big thick collection of full-color, full-page high quality depictions of Andy Warhol's portraits of people.After you've studied Warhol's general oeuvre--- the soupcans, Brillo pads, silver balloons and happenings--- you'll definitely want to get a big close look at the paintings which basically supported Warhol, financially, keeping him afloat after the initial 1960's brouhaha of Pop Art had passed.These are mostly sharp, dramatic paintings of the very rich, the very beautiful and the very famous, the dramatis personae who populated Warhol's circle, done in silkscreen on canvas; all the paintings have a square aspect ratio, and all feature the artist's amazing, innovative and subtly chic color palette, and his style, which appeared to be a effort mixed of seemingly slapdash paintstreaks and extremely precise halftone shadings and layout. It is well-known that Warhol had a factory of helpers-- his "Superstars"--- who did a lot of the actual silkscreen printing for him. Legend has it that all these famous images were first sourced by Andy's having taken cheap, quick, flash-lit Polaroid snapshots at parties. Andy was fascinated by the things in America which were either singularly precious, or cheaply disposable, and he mingled both aesthetics in his artwork.If you study Warhol's career, you know that many art critics have dismissed as "not real Art" just about everything the artist did after his being shot in 1968. After that fateful date, Warhol decided that portraitizing the beau-monde (movie stars, art dealers, rockstars, socialites, royalty and supermodels) and demi-monde (drag queens, drug addicts, hustlers and pornstars) of New York society was how he chose to spend the period roughly from 1968--1984. This thick PHAIDON book contains a sumptuous collection of those portraits in large format.Nowdays, digital softwares allow us to approximate the general look of the famous portraits, but if you'll closely examine the subtleties of these canvases, you'll observe that they are full of shrewd and subtle details that almost no modern Photoshop practitioner can duplicate. As John Updike has said, none of the modern knockoffs of Warhol even come close to what the artist was really doing with these silkscreens.Highly recommended. [N.B. Do note that this book does NOT contain the iconic oil-pastel celebrity covers of INTERVIEW magazine; those were done not by Warhol, but by the late Richard Bernstein. Hopefully, we'll get a nice big book of his portraits someday!]

If you like looking at Andy Warhol's works, especially from the 60's and 70's you'll like this. I was surprised at who was and wasn't included though. I enjoy flipping though it and reading the commentary. The book is thick, the quality of the pictures and text is good. I think it was a worthwhile purchase.

Everyone is familiar with Andy Warhol's famous portraits like the Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, and the Mao. But fewer people know the many portraits he did of famous, glamourous, or simply wealthy patrons.I have read the Andy Warhol Diaries, his Philosophy book and other Warhol related works, so it is now very interesting to see what his many portraits look like. They are each colorful, creative and interesting.The book is a nice hard-bound large format coffee-table edition.

This book enables the reader to discover some rarely seen paintings by Warhol, representing many personalities from the sixties, seventies and eighties, from O.J. Simpson to Pelé, from the Queen of England to the Shah of Iran, artists, art dealers, art collectors, musicians (John Lennon...), actors, fashion designers and friends of the artist's. Even though it was this kind of work that drew the harshest criticism (Robert Hughes, critic for Time Magazine, dubbed Warhol the new Van Dongen, meaning by that that he only painted superficial portraits of the rich and famous of his time), they still show the scope and depth of Warhol's creative power. The book is lavishly illustrated and the text was written by leading Warhol authorities (dealer or critic). A very complete checklist of all the portraits illustrated is given at the end of the book. A valuable addition to the albeit extensive Warhol literature.

Not in the ‘great condition’ the description said

This is an execellent recource for someone looking to see all of Warhol's ouvre - it includes practically all there is to see from his portraits. I loved it but I would only recommend it to someone with specific interest in the subject. Otherwise some other book featuring less but more varied works woud be more appropriate.

love the book

Outstanding resource for POP PORTRAITS. A must!