Mick Jagger (F&S II.141) by Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Mick Jagger (F&S II.141)
colour screenprint on arches aquarelle (rough) paper
signed by the artist, numbered 13/250 and signed by Mick Jagger in the lower margin. Printed by Alexander Heinrici, New York. Published by Seabird Editions, London, England
43.5 x 28.75 ins ( 110.5 x 73 cms ) ( sheet )
Auction Estimate: $135,000.00 - $175,000.00
Price Realized $276,000.00
Sale date: December 6th 2023
Private Collection, Ontario
Andy Warhol, “Andy Warhol’s Exposures”, New York, 1979, page 29
Freyda Feldman and Jörg Schellmann, “Andy Warhol Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné 1962–1987”, 4th edition, 2003, catalogue no. II.141
From the portfolio of ten colour screenprints of Mick Jagger, Warhol has used his own source material. In 1975 Mick and his then–wife Bianca rented Warhol’s Montauk home at the eastern tip of Long Island, with the band in the small town to rehearse for their upcoming tour. There, Warhol took a series of Polaroids of the singer, shirt off with just a chain around his neck, focused on capturing Jagger’s raunchy sex appeal. Warhol said of Jagger at the time:
“Mick brings out the bisexuality in men who normally would not be like that. He’s androgynous enough for almost everyone. That’s always been his basic appeal, mixed with facts that:
1) He’s very talented;
2) He’s very intelligent;
3) He’s very handsome;
4) He’s very adorable;
5) He’s a great business person;
6) He’s a movie star;
7) I like his fake Cockney accent.”
Most importantly, Warhol’s approach to these screenprints deviated from his usual process. Instead, he drew attention to Jagger’s gaze, pouting mouth, and exposed armpit using Colour Aid papers that create a collaged application of colour.
Even though the suite cemented Jagger and Warhol’s relationship in the public eye, turning these Polaroids into the portfolio we know today was actually a business proposal from the London–based Seabirds Editions Company, who offered to publish them. The fact that both Jagger and Warhol have signed them has only contributed to amplifying the commercial allure of these screenprints.
Share this item with your friends
Andy Warhol
(1928 - 1987)
Fascinated by consumer culture, fame, and the media, Andy Warhol established himself as one of the most famous and influential artists of the twentieth century. Born in 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to working-class immigrants from present-day Slovakia, Warhol grew up with an enduring interest in celebrities and mass culture. He studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology before moving to New York City to become a successful commercial artist and illustrator. During the 1950s, his drawings were published in magazines and displayed in department stores. Yet, Warhol was developing his own style of painting at the same time, inspired by mass culture.
By the early 1960s, Warhol began producing paintings of banal consumer goods, such as soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles, and movie stars, thus establishing his status as the founder of Pop art. He deliberately blurred the lines between high and low art, celebrating popular culture and consumerism unlike ever before. Warhol embraced the photomechanical silkscreen process in 1962 by producing paintings through photography, thus rejecting traditional notions of the handmade and authorship from his works. The fact that his studio was called “The Factory” only reinforced this image. By 1963, he had replaced his silkscreen process for hand painting. Working with assistants, he produced series of flowers, cows, and portraits of celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Queen Elizabeth II, Liz Taylor and Mick Jagger, among many others. In the early 1970s, he returned to painting after concentrating briefly on making films, producing monumental silkscreen images of Mao Zedong, commissioned portraits and the Hammer and Sickle series. A major retrospective of his work, organized by the Pasadena Art Museum in 1970, travelled across the United States and abroad. Warhol died in 1987 at the age of fifty-eight in New York.
