Figurative Paintings

Dancer  is a beautiful oil on panel realized by  Vrbová-Štefková in the mid-20th Century.  Signed and framed, 60 x 50 cm.  Good condition. 

Jogen Chowdhury - Untitled Edition - 5/5 Woodcut on Paper Print Size - 7.1 x 9.6 inches Paper Size - 9.5 x 14.8 inches 2019 (Unframed & Delivered) Modern Indian artist Jogen Chowdh...

George Petrie (1790–1866) - Romantic Irish Landscape, Oil on Canvas This captivating oil on canvas by the renowned Irish artist George Petrie, often referred to as the "Father of Ir...

Lady is an orignal modern artwork realized by Antonio Feltrinelli in the 1930s. Mixed colored oil painting on canvas. Not signed. Antonio Feltri...

Milton Derr Spring, 1982 Signed lower right; titled and dated verso Oil on canvas 26 x 28 inches Provenance Acquired by descent from the artist to the present owner Milton Derr wa...

Lovers - Nude Couple in Bed - Figurative Composition in Acrylic on Paper Expressive depiction of a nude couple by Byron Richard Rodarmel (American, 1932-2007). A couple is intertwin...

Joan Gillchrest (British, 1918 – 2008) Titus and Moet Oil on board Signed with initials ‘JG’ (lower left) 32 x 44.1/4 in. (81.5 x 112.5 cm.)

ADOLF ARTHUR DEHN (American, 1895-1969) San Francisco Bay Area street scene, with Trolley, Streetcar, Cable Car with bay and Alcatraz Island in background. Hand signed LRC. Sight 19" x 15", overall 23" x 19". Adolf Dehn (November 22, 1895 – May 19, 1968) was an American artist known mainly as a lithographer. Throughout his artistic career, he participated in and helped define some important movements in American art, including regionalism, social realism, and caricature. A two-time recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, he was known for both his technical skills and his high-spirited, droll depictions of human foibles. Adolph Dehn was born in 1895 in Waterville, Minnesota. He began creating artwork at the age of six, and by the time of his death had created nearly 650 images. Dehn went to the Minneapolis School of Art (known today as the Minneapolis College of Art and Design), where he met and became a close friend of Wanda Gag. In 1917 he and Gág were two of only a dozen students in the country to earn a scholarship to the Art Students League of New York. He was drafted to serve in World War I in 1918, but declared himself a conscientious objector and spent four months in a guardhouse detention camp in Spartanburg, SC and then worked for eight months as a painting teacher at an arm rehabilitation hospital in Asheville, NC. Later, Dehn returned to the Art Students League for another year of study and created his first lithograph, The Harvest. In 1921 Dehn's lithographs were featured in his first exhibition at Weyhe Gallery in New York City. From 1920 to 1921 in Manhattan, he was connected to New York's politically left-leaning activists. In 1921, he went to Europe. In Paris and Vienna he belonged to a group of expatriate intellectuals and artists, including Andrée Ruellan, Gertrude Stein, and ee cummings...

'On the Path', pastel and ink on art paper, by Suzanne Tourte (circa 1950s). Executed with a lively palette of colour, this is a surprisingly sophisticated modern work of art which belies its rather naive style. Flowered fields, green grassy patches, a curved path and blue skies all figure in this engaging landscape with two figures. Newly framed and glazed in anti-reflective glass, this work is in good overall condition. Signed: 'S X Tourte' in the lower right hand. Please enjoy the many photos accompanying the listing. Upon request, a video may be provided. About the Artist: Suzanne Tourte (1904-1979) was a French painter, engraver, medalist, fresco artist, lithographer and illustrator. She was also an excellent vocalist. She studied at the school of Beaux-Arts in Reims while continuing her musical studies at the Conservatoire de la Ville. She chose painting as a profession and returned to Paris to continue her studies. She was friends with artists Yves Brayer and Robert Humblot...

Antique original nocturnal cityscape oil painting. Oil on board, circa 1920. Signed illegibly. Image size, 12L x 16H. Housed in a period frame.

This symbolic contemporary portrait painting on canvas, titled Ancestor Clone 14, is part of Natasha Lelenco’s ongoing series You Are The One. Executed in acrylic with expressive brushwork and a vibrant color palette, the piece presents a striking symbolic face composed of stylized and exaggerated features. The deep greenish skin tone contrasts with the warm pink background, evoking a dreamlike yet intimate atmosphere. Delicate white flowers surround the face, while a small anthropomorphic form is gently cradled in one hand—an ambiguous presence that may represent an inner discomfort, a fear, or a personal burden. The figure’s attitude towards this entity is not one of rejection, but of tender familiarity. In this visual encounter, the painting suggests a narrative where discomfort is no longer externalized but softly embraced. This piece belongs to the Ancestor Clones subseries, which reflects on repetition, inheritance, and the performative nature of identity. The You Are The One project as a whole questions the idea of individuality in a world where selfhood is shaped by collective memory, algorithms, and archetypes. Working across a range of aesthetic references—from naïve figuration to expressionism and echoes of urban art—Lelenco constructs a visual language that speaks of hybridity and psychological intensity. Her characters, often symmetrical and frontal, resemble ritual masks or avatars, and point to an exploration of the “posthuman” condition through the codes of contemporary portraiture. This work is intended to function both as an individual painting and as part of a larger polyptych installation. Many pieces in the series have already been collected worldwide and have appeared in international exhibitions. Natasha Lelenco is open to commission-based projects and multi-piece configurations that adapt to the needs of specific interiors or curatorial contexts. Please feel free to contact us to inquire about additional works or special arrangements. Keywords: contemporary portrait painting, symbolic art, psychological portrait, posthuman identity, surreal face, acrylic on canvas, pink and green artwork...

The Grand Canal, Venice Alvarez ( Mid 20th Century) signed oil on canvas, framed framed: 25 x 33 inches canvas: 20 x 28 inches provenance: private collection, France condition: very ...

Antique American modernist nocturnal street scene oil painting by Jerome Myers (1867 - 1940). Oil on board. Framed. Signed. Measuring 16 by 18 inches overall and 9 by 11 painting al...

Playing with the interaction between positive and negative space, strong colors on neutral backgrounds, Canadian artist Virginie Schroeder creates pop art portraits and iconic pop cu...

Georgina Klitgaard The Ledge, 1936-37 Signed lower right Oil on canvas 30 x 52 inches Georgina Klitgaard’s art has sometimes gotten lost in the critical propensity to assign artist...

DRIFT AND THOUGHT Size: 35 x 44 cm (including frame) Oil on board A mid-century modernist painting that presents a tranquil seaside scene, executed in oil onto board. The painting ...

WWII Aircraft Factory Workers Industrial 20th Century American Scene WPA Modern Frederick Buchholz (1901-1983) WW2 Aircraft Factory 18 x 24 inches Oil ...

Framed 41.5 x 29.5 image 35.5 x 23.5 This large painting depicts a man and woman, Adam and Eve, interlocked and embracing one another. The woman holds an enticing apple as they are thrusted from the Garden of Eden. This is an original painting. Zamy Steynovitz was born in Liegnitz Poland, in 1951. He immigrated to Israel in 1957. The aspiration to be a painter stems from his childhood and before leaving Poland, he won the first prize in an art competition for children. Zamy was formally educated at the Art School in Tel-Aviv and at the Royal Academy of London. Upon completing his studies, Zamy earnestly pursued his career and establish his place in the art world by displaying his work in one man exhibits and arts fairs around the world. His art displays chromatic and thematic richness and his choice of subjects has been strongly influenced by Jewish tradition, his Eastern European Jewish heritage and folklore. Zamy’s popular themes include Paris cafes, still-life, flowers, circuses and landscapes. Circus with acrobats and Harlequin. In the early stages of his career, he was partial to rich pastels and light brush strokes. In the early 1980s, Zamy visited South America, where the new surroundings enhanced his work with local brightness and color. His art gained chromatic power and his palette became richer in tones as the textures became thicker and the background darker and more colorful. These changes coupled with his thematic persistence allowed him to develop into a sensitive and mature artist. Zamy expresses a universal humanistic vision in his creations: man’s connection to his heritage and physical surroundings, two imperative aspects of our lives that should be heralded during these estranged technological times. As a result of his devotion to world peace, Zamy is known in the circles of the Nobel Institute for Peace in Norway. He is acquainted with many Nobel Prize winners including Anwar Sadat, Menachem Begin, the Dalai Lama, Itzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Elie Wiesel, Desmond Tutu and Oscar Arias, the ex-President of Costa Rica, along with many other politicians and artists. Zamy tragically passed away in September 2000. Exhibitions One Man Show 1970 - Museum - Ramat - Gan 1973 - Brussels - Gallery L'Angle Aigu 1974 - London - International Gallery 1974 - Paris - Grand Palais Gallery 1975 - Milan - Brera Gallery 1976 - N.Y. Valentino Gallery - N.Y. Hilton 1977 - N.Y. Valentino Gallery - N.Y. Hilton 1978 - Basel - Actual Gallery 1978 - Geneve - Bohren Gallery 1978 - Oslo - Nobel Peace Prize Exhibit 1979 - London - Hamilton Gallery 1979 - N.Y. - Art Israel Kalt - Waldinger Gallery 1979 - N.Y. - Canty Art Gallery 1979 - Amsterdam - Schipper Gallery 1979 - Washington - International Art Fair 1980 - Cleveland -Jewish Museum 1980 - Tel-Aviv - Habima National Art Fair 1981 - Abraham - Goodman House N.Y. 1981 - San Lucas Galley - Bogota 1982 - Pedro Gerson Gallery - Mexico City 1983 - Simon Bolivar...

"Lipse" is a standout piece from Elizabeth Art Candy’s Fake Gum’s series, where her signature 3D mosaic technique transforms one of her most iconic subjects—the lips—into a playful, ...

"Triple Elvis" (Denied) Silkscreen Painting by Charles Lutz Silkscreen and silver enamel paint on canvas with Artist's Denied stamp of the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board. 82 x 72" inches 2010 This important example was shown alongside works by Warhol in a two-person show "Warhol Revisited (Charles Lutz / Andy Warhol)" at UAB Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts in 2024. Lutz's 2007 ''Warhol Denied'' series gained international attention by calling into question the importance of originality or lack thereof in the work of Andy Warhol. The authentication/denial process of the [[Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board]] was used to create value by submitting recreations of Warhol works for judgment with the full intention for the works to be formally marked "DENIED". The final product of the conceptual project being "officially denied" "Warhol" paintings authored by Lutz. Based on the full-length Elvis Presley paintings by Pop Artist Andy Warhol in 1964, this is likely one of his most iconic images, next to Campbell's Soup Cans and portraits of Jackie Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor, and Marlon Brando. This is the rarest of the Elvis works from the series, as Lutz sourced a vintage roll of 1960's primed artist linen which was used for this one Elvis. The silkscreen, like Warhol's embraced imperfections, like the slight double image printing of the Elvis image. Lutz received his BFA in Painting and Art History from Pratt Institute and studied Human Dissection and Anatomy at Columbia University, New York. Lutz's work deals with perceptions and value structures, specifically the idea of the transference of values. Lutz's most recently presented an installation of new sculptures dealing with consumerism at Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater House in 2022. Lutz's 2007 Warhol Denied series received international attention calling into question the importance of originality in a work of art. The valuation process (authentication or denial) of the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board was used by the artist to create value by submitting recreations of Warhol works for judgment, with the full intention for the works to be formally marked "DENIED" of their authenticity. The final product of this conceptual project is "Officially DENIED" "Warhol" paintings authored by Lutz. Later in 2013, Lutz went on to do one of his largest public installations to date. At the 100th Anniversary of Marcel Duchamp's groundbreaking and controversial Armory Show, Lutz was asked by the curator of Armory Focus: USA and former Director of The Andy Warhol Museum, Eric Shiner to create a site-specific installation representing the US. The installation "Babel" (based on Pieter Bruegel's famous painting) consisted of 1500 cardboard replicas of Warhol's Brillo Box (Stockholm Type) stacked 20 ft tall. All 1500 boxes were then given to the public freely, debasing the Brillo Box as an art commodity by removing its value, in addition to debasing its willing consumers. Elvis was "the greatest cultural force in the Twentieth Century. He introduced the beat to everything, and he changed everything - music, language, clothes, it's a whole new social revolution." Leonard Bernstein in: Exh. Cat., Boston, The Institute of Contemporary Art and traveling, Elvis + Marilyn 2 x Immortal, 1994-97, p. 9. Andy Warhol "quite simply changed how we all see the world around us." Kynaston McShine in: Exh. Cat., New York, Museum of Modern Art (and traveling), Andy Warhol: Retrospective, 1996, p. 13. In the summer of 1963 Elvis Presley was just twenty-eight years old but already a legend of his time. During the preceding seven years - since Heartbreak Hotel became the biggest-selling record of 1956 - he had recorded seventeen number-one singles and seven number-one albums; starred in eleven films, countless national TV appearances, tours, and live performances; earned tens of millions of dollars; and was instantly recognized across the globe. The undisputed King of Rock and Roll, Elvis was the biggest star alive: a cultural phenomenon of mythic proportions apparently no longer confined to the man alone. As the eminent composer Leonard Bernstein put it, Elvis was "the greatest cultural force in the Twentieth Century. He introduced the beat to everything, and he changed everything - music, language, clothes, it's a whole new social revolution." (Exh. Cat., Boston, The Institute of Contemporary Art (and traveling), Elvis + Marilyn 2 x Immortal, 1994, p. 9). In the summer of 1963 Andy Warhol was thirty-four years old and transforming the parameters of visual culture in America. The focus of his signature silkscreen was leveled at subjects he brilliantly perceived as the most important concerns of day to day contemporary life. By appropriating the visual vernacular of consumer culture and multiplying readymade images gleaned from newspapers, magazines and advertising, he turned a mirror onto the contradictions behind quotidian existence. Above all else he was obsessed with themes of celebrity and death, executing intensely multifaceted and complex works in series that continue to resound with universal relevance. His unprecedented practice re-presented how society viewed itself, simultaneously reinforcing and radically undermining the collective psychology of popular culture. He epitomized the tide of change that swept through the 1960s and, as Kynaston McShine has concisely stated, "He quite simply changed how we all see the world around us." (Exh. Cat., New York, Museum of Modern Art (and traveling), Andy Warhol: Retrospective, 1996, p. 13). Thus in the summer of 1963 there could not have been a more perfect alignment of artist and subject than Warhol and Elvis. Perhaps the most famous depiction of the biggest superstar by the original superstar artist, Double Elvis is a historic paradigm of Pop Art from a breath-taking moment in Art History. With devastating immediacy and efficiency, Warhol's canvas seduces our view with a stunning aesthetic and confronts our experience with a sophisticated array of thematic content. Not only is there all of Elvis, man and legend, but we are also presented with the specter of death, staring at us down the barrel of a gun; and the lone cowboy, confronting the great frontier and the American dream. The spray painted silver screen denotes the glamour and glory of cinema, the artificiality of fantasy, and the idea of a mirror that reveals our own reality back to us. At the same time, Warhol's replication of Elvis' image as a double stands as metaphor for the means and effects of mass-media and its inherent potential to manipulate and condition. These thematic strata function in simultaneous concert to deliver a work of phenomenal conceptual brilliance. The portrait of a man, the portrait of a country, and the portrait of a time, Double Elvis is an indisputable icon for our age. The source image was a publicity still for the movie Flaming Star, starring Presley as the character Pacer Burton and directed by Don Siegel in 1960. The film was originally intended as a vehicle for Marlon Brando and produced by David Weisbart, who had made James Dean's Rebel Without a Cause in 1955. It was the first of two Twentieth Century Fox productions Presley was contracted to by his manager Colonel Tom Parker, determined to make the singer a movie star. For the compulsive movie-fan Warhol, the sheer power of Elvis wielding a revolver as the reluctant gunslinger presented the zenith of subject matter: ultimate celebrity invested with the ultimate power to issue death. Warhol's Elvis is physically larger than life and wears the expression that catapulted him into a million hearts: inexplicably and all at once fearful and resolute; vulnerable and predatory; innocent and explicit. It is the look of David Halberstam's observation that "Elvis Presley was an American original, the rebel as mother's boy, alternately sweet and sullen, ready on demand to be either respectable or rebellious." (Exh. Cat., Boston, Op. Cit.). Indeed, amidst Warhol's art there is only one other subject whose character so ethereally defies categorization and who so acutely conflated total fame with the inevitability of mortality. In Warhol's work, only Elvis and Marilyn harness a pictorial magnetism of mythic proportions. With Marilyn Monroe, whom Warhol depicted immediately after her premature death in August 1962, he discovered a memento mori to unite the obsessions driving his career: glamour, beauty, fame, and death. As a star of the silver screen and the definitive international sex symbol, Marilyn epitomized the unattainable essence of superstardom that Warhol craved. Just as there was no question in 1963, there remains still none today that the male equivalent to Marilyn is Elvis. However, despite his famous 1968 adage, "If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings" Warhol's fascination held purpose far beyond mere idolization. As Rainer Crone explained in 1970, Warhol was interested in movie stars above all else because they were "people who could justifiably be seen as the nearest thing to representatives of mass culture." (Rainer Crone, Andy Warhol, New York, 1970, p. 22). Warhol was singularly drawn to the idols of Elvis and Marilyn, as he was to Marlon Brando and Liz Taylor, because he implicitly understood the concurrence between the projection of their image and the projection of their brand. Some years after the present work he wrote, "In the early days of film, fans used to idolize a whole star - they would take one star and love everything about that star...So you should always have a product that's not just 'you.' An actress should count up her plays and movies and a model should count up her photographs and a writer should count up his words and an artist should count up his pictures so you always know exactly what you're worth, and you don't get stuck thinking your product is you and your fame, and your aura." (Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again), San Diego, New York and London, 1977, p. 86). The film stars of the late 1950s and early 1960s that most obsessed Warhol embodied tectonic shifts in wider cultural and societal values. In 1971 John Coplans argued that Warhol was transfixed by the subject of Elvis, and to a lesser degree by Marlon Brando and James Dean, because they were "authentically creative, and not merely products of Hollywood's fantasy or commercialism. All three had originative lives, and therefore are strong personalities; all three raised - at one level or another - important questions as to the quality of life in America and the nature of its freedoms. Implicit in their attitude is a condemnation of society and its ways; they project an image of the necessity for the individual to search for his own future, not passively, but aggressively, with commitment and passion." (John Coplans, "Andy Warhol and Elvis Presley," Studio International, vol. 181, no. 930, February 1971, pp. 51-52). However, while Warhol unquestionably adored these idols as transformative heralds, the suggestion that his paintings of Elvis...

Compelling figurative study in gouache and pencil by Joesph Capozio (American, 1928-2016). Estate stamp lower right corner with bio on verso. Presented in mahogany wood frame. Framed size: 19"H x 17"W. Capozio was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1927. After serving in World War II, he attended art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He lived and worked in San Francisco, California; New Orleans, Louisiana; Siesta Key...

Artist/ School: French School, circa 1988, signed and inscribed verso Title: American Soccer players Medium: oil on canvas, framed Framed: 24 x 37 inches Canvas : 23.75 x 36.5 i...

Oil mesures 36x23 cm. Frameless. Restored.

Landscape is a modern artwork realized by Kurt Schwitters in 1936. Mixed colored oil on canvas. Signed with monogram and dated on the lower right rec...

Original acrylic painting on canvas. Hand-signed and dated in acrylic on front by Peter Max. Canvas size 96 x 48 inches. Frame size aprox 100 x 52 inches. Peter Max studio catalog...

With "Yellow Popsicle", Brennan creates a visually striking acrylic painting that elevates an everyday object to a new singular level of precision and questioning paying homage to Ph...

New York Harbor by John Chapman LEWIS (American, 1920-1994) signed & dated 1948 oil on canvas, unframed Canvas: 14 x 22.5 inches Provenance: Private colle...

Los Angeles street artist Gary John exploded onto the international art scene first during Art Basel Miami in 2013. John’s playfully bold work quickly gained attention and he was nam...

"Cruise Ship Rolls In" Mid 20th Century American Contemporary Modern Realism This is one sensational painting. And we can even identify the artist, but can't find anything about the...

***Please note the glass will be removed for shipping*** For local and London deliveries the glass can be retained if agreed prior to purchase. George Large, R.I. (born 1936) Street musicians Signed and dated (19)91 Watercolour over traces of pencil 15¾ x 26 25½ x 35 with frame ​​ George Large is a painter in watercolour and oil, born in Islington, London in 1936. He studied at Hornsey College of Art (1958-63), teachers including Maurice de Sausmarez, John Titchell and Alfred Daniels. Large spent some time in the display department of Simpson’s, Piccadilly, was part-time at Hornsey College of Art, then head of department at St Julian...

Female Figure is an original artwork realized in the 1930s by Antonio Feltrinelli (Milan, 1887 - Gargnano, 1942). Original Painting on canvas. Hand-signed on the lower right corne...

A Large, Sensational Mid-Century Modern Painting of a Chicago Night Club Showgirl. Painted in the 1950s, this is a large, vertical, abstracted portrayal of a standing Burlesque danc...

A fine modernist portrait of a woman by American artist Margaret Hawkins Keane (1927-2022). Keane was born in Nashville,TN, and attributes her deep respect for the Bible and inspirations of her artwork to the relationship with her grandmother. In the 1960’s, while married to her second husband Walter, she was forced to paint and sell under his name, but during their divorce proceedings, she was able to prove that the paintings were actually done by her and the court determined that she was able to paint under her own name again. She became known for painting women and children with large black sad eyes...

Elvis, Metallic Silver and Black Full Length Silkscreen Painting by Charles Lutz Silkscreen and silver enamel painted on vintage 1960's era linen with Artist's Denied stamp of the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board. 82" x 40" inches 2010 Lutz's 2007 ''Warhol Denied'' series gained international attention by calling into question the importance of originality or lack thereof in the work of Andy Warhol. The authentication/denial process of the [[Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board]] was used to create value by submitting recreations of Warhol works for judgment with the full intention for the works to be formally marked "DENIED". The final product of the conceptual project being "officially denied" "Warhol" paintings authored by Lutz. Based on the full-length Elvis Presley paintings by Pop Artist Andy Warhol in 1964, this is likely one of his most iconic images, next to Campbell's Soup Cans and portraits of Jackie Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor, and Marlon Brando. This is the rarest of the Elvis works from the series, as Lutz sourced a vintage roll of 1960's primed artist linen which was used for this one Elvis. The silkscreen, like Warhol's embraced imperfections, like the slight double image printing of the Elvis image. Lutz received his BFA in Painting and Art History from Pratt Institute and studied Human Dissection and Anatomy at Columbia University, New York. Lutz's work deals with perceptions and value structures, specifically the idea of the transference of values. Lutz's most recently presented an installation of new sculptures dealing with consumerism at Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater House in 2022. Lutz's 2007 Warhol Denied series received international attention calling into question the importance of originality in a work of art. The valuation process (authentication or denial) of the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board was used by the artist to create value by submitting recreations of Warhol works for judgment, with the full intention for the works to be formally marked "DENIED" of their authenticity. The final product of this conceptual project is "Officially DENIED" "Warhol" paintings authored by Lutz. Later in 2013, Lutz went on to do one of his largest public installations to date. At the 100th Anniversary of Marcel Duchamp's groundbreaking and controversial Armory Show, Lutz was asked by the curator of Armory Focus: USA and former Director of The Andy Warhol Museum, Eric Shiner to create a site-specific installation representing the US. The installation "Babel" (based on Pieter Bruegel's famous painting) consisted of 1500 cardboard replicas of Warhol's Brillo Box (Stockholm Type) stacked 20 ft tall. All 1500 boxes were then given to the public freely, debasing the Brillo Box as an art commodity by removing its value, in addition to debasing its willing consumers. Elvis was "the greatest cultural force in the Twentieth Century. He introduced the beat to everything, and he changed everything - music, language, clothes, it's a whole new social revolution." Leonard Bernstein in: Exh. Cat., Boston, The Institute of Contemporary Art and traveling, Elvis + Marilyn 2 x Immortal, 1994-97, p. 9. Andy Warhol "quite simply changed how we all see the world around us." Kynaston McShine in: Exh. Cat., New York, Museum of Modern Art (and traveling), Andy Warhol: Retrospective, 1996, p. 13. In the summer of 1963 Elvis Presley was just twenty-eight years old but already a legend of his time. During the preceding seven years - since Heartbreak Hotel became the biggest-selling record of 1956 - he had recorded seventeen number-one singles and seven number-one albums; starred in eleven films, countless national TV appearances, tours, and live performances; earned tens of millions of dollars; and was instantly recognized across the globe. The undisputed King of Rock and Roll, Elvis was the biggest star alive: a cultural phenomenon of mythic proportions apparently no longer confined to the man alone. As the eminent composer Leonard Bernstein put it, Elvis was "the greatest cultural force in the Twentieth Century. He introduced the beat to everything, and he changed everything - music, language, clothes, it's a whole new social revolution." (Exh. Cat., Boston, The Institute of Contemporary Art (and traveling), Elvis + Marilyn 2 x Immortal, 1994, p. 9). In the summer of 1963 Andy Warhol was thirty-four years old and transforming the parameters of visual culture in America. The focus of his signature silkscreen was leveled at subjects he brilliantly perceived as the most important concerns of day to day contemporary life. By appropriating the visual vernacular of consumer culture and multiplying readymade images gleaned from newspapers, magazines and advertising, he turned a mirror onto the contradictions behind quotidian existence. Above all else he was obsessed with themes of celebrity and death, executing intensely multifaceted and complex works in series that continue to resound with universal relevance. His unprecedented practice re-presented how society viewed itself, simultaneously reinforcing and radically undermining the collective psychology of popular culture. He epitomized the tide of change that swept through the 1960s and, as Kynaston McShine has concisely stated, "He quite simply changed how we all see the world around us." (Exh. Cat., New York, Museum of Modern Art (and traveling), Andy Warhol: Retrospective, 1996, p. 13). Thus in the summer of 1963 there could not have been a more perfect alignment of artist and subject than Warhol and Elvis. Perhaps the most famous depiction of the biggest superstar by the original superstar artist, Double Elvis is a historic paradigm of Pop Art from a breath-taking moment in Art History. With devastating immediacy and efficiency, Warhol's canvas seduces our view with a stunning aesthetic and confronts our experience with a sophisticated array of thematic content. Not only is there all of Elvis, man and legend, but we are also presented with the specter of death, staring at us down the barrel of a gun; and the lone cowboy, confronting the great frontier and the American dream. The spray painted silver screen denotes the glamour and glory of cinema, the artificiality of fantasy, and the idea of a mirror that reveals our own reality back to us. At the same time, Warhol's replication of Elvis' image as a double stands as metaphor for the means and effects of mass-media and its inherent potential to manipulate and condition. These thematic strata function in simultaneous concert to deliver a work of phenomenal conceptual brilliance. The portrait of a man, the portrait of a country, and the portrait of a time, Double Elvis is an indisputable icon for our age. The source image was a publicity still for the movie Flaming Star, starring Presley as the character Pacer Burton and directed by Don Siegel in 1960. The film was originally intended as a vehicle for Marlon Brando and produced by David Weisbart, who had made James Dean's Rebel Without a Cause in 1955. It was the first of two Twentieth Century Fox productions Presley was contracted to by his manager Colonel Tom Parker, determined to make the singer a movie star. For the compulsive movie-fan Warhol, the sheer power of Elvis wielding a revolver as the reluctant gunslinger presented the zenith of subject matter: ultimate celebrity invested with the ultimate power to issue death. Warhol's Elvis is physically larger than life and wears the expression that catapulted him into a million hearts: inexplicably and all at once fearful and resolute; vulnerable and predatory; innocent and explicit. It is the look of David Halberstam's observation that "Elvis Presley was an American original, the rebel as mother's boy, alternately sweet and sullen, ready on demand to be either respectable or rebellious." (Exh. Cat., Boston, Op. Cit.). Indeed, amidst Warhol's art there is only one other subject whose character so ethereally defies categorization and who so acutely conflated total fame with the inevitability of mortality. In Warhol's work, only Elvis and Marilyn harness a pictorial magnetism of mythic proportions. With Marilyn Monroe, whom Warhol depicted immediately after her premature death in August 1962, he discovered a memento mori to unite the obsessions driving his career: glamour, beauty, fame, and death. As a star of the silver screen and the definitive international sex symbol, Marilyn epitomized the unattainable essence of superstardom that Warhol craved. Just as there was no question in 1963, there remains still none today that the male equivalent to Marilyn is Elvis. However, despite his famous 1968 adage, "If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings" Warhol's fascination held purpose far beyond mere idolization. As Rainer Crone explained in 1970, Warhol was interested in movie stars above all else because they were "people who could justifiably be seen as the nearest thing to representatives of mass culture." (Rainer Crone, Andy Warhol, New York, 1970, p. 22). Warhol was singularly drawn to the idols of Elvis and Marilyn, as he was to Marlon Brando and Liz Taylor, because he implicitly understood the concurrence between the projection of their image and the projection of their brand. Some years after the present work he wrote, "In the early days of film, fans used to idolize a whole star - they would take one star and love everything about that star...So you should always have a product that's not just 'you.' An actress should count up her plays and movies and a model should count up her photographs and a writer should count up his words and an artist should count up his pictures so you always know exactly what you're worth, and you don't get stuck thinking your product is you and your fame, and your aura." (Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again), San Diego, New York and London, 1977, p. 86). The film stars of the late 1950s and early 1960s that most obsessed Warhol embodied tectonic shifts in wider cultural and societal values. In 1971 John Coplans argued that Warhol was transfixed by the subject of Elvis, and to a lesser degree by Marlon Brando and James Dean, because they were "authentically creative, and not merely products of Hollywood's fantasy or commercialism. All three had originative lives, and therefore are strong personalities; all three raised - at one level or another - important questions as to the quality of life in America and the nature of its freedoms. Implicit in their attitude is a condemnation of society and its ways; they project an image of the necessity for the individual to search for his own future, not passively, but aggressively, with commitment and passion." (John Coplans, "Andy Warhol and Elvis Presley," Studio International, vol. 181, no. 930, February 1971, pp. 51-52). However, while Warhol unquestionably adored these idols as transformative heralds, the suggestion that his paintings of Elvis are uncritical of a generated public image issued for mass consumption fails to appreciate the acuity of his specific re-presentation of the King. As with Marilyn, Liz and Marlon, Warhol instinctively understood the Elvis brand as an industrialized construct, designed for mass consumption like a Coca-Cola bottle or Campbell's Soup Can, and radically revealed it as a precisely composed non-reality. Of course Elvis offered Warhol the biggest brand of all, and he accentuates this by choosing a manifestly contrived version of Elvis-the-film-star, rather than the raw genius of Elvis as performing Rock n' Roll pioneer. A few months prior to the present work he had silkscreened Elvis' brooding visage in a small cycle of works based on a simple headshot, including Red Elvis, but the absence of context in these works minimizes the critical potency that is so present in Double Elvis. With Double Elvis we are confronted by a figure so familiar to us, yet playing a role relating to violence and death that is entirely at odds with the associations entrenched with the singer's renowned love songs. Although we may think this version of Elvis makes sense, it is the overwhelming power of the totemic cipher of the Elvis legend that means we might not even question why he is pointing a gun rather than a guitar. Thus Warhol interrogates the limits of the popular visual vernacular, posing vital questions of collective perception and cognition in contemporary society. The notion that this self-determinedly iconic painting shows an artificial paradigm is compounded by Warhol's enlistment of a reflective metallic surface, a treatment he reserved for his most important portraits of Elvis, Marilyn, Marlon and Liz. Here the synthetic chemical silver paint becomes allegory for the manufacture of the Elvis product, and directly anticipates the artist's 1968 statement: "Everything is sort of artificial. I don't know where the artificial stops and the real starts. The artificial fascinates me, the bright and shiny..." (Artist quoted in Exh. Cat., Stockholm, Moderna Museet and traveling, Andy Warhol, 1968, n.p.). At the same time, the shiny silver paint of Double Elvis unquestionably denotes the glamour of the silver screen and the attractive fantasies of cinema. At exactly this time in the summer of 1963 Warhol bought his first movie camera and produced his first films such as Sleep, Kiss and Tarzan and Jane Regained. Although the absence of plot or narrative convention in these movies was a purposely anti-Hollywood gesture, the unattainability of classic movie stardom still held profound allure and resonance for Warhol. He remained a celebrity and film fanatic, and it was exactly this addiction that so qualifies his sensational critique of the industry machinations behind the stars he adored. Double Elvis was executed less than eighteen months after he had created 32 Campbell's Soup Cans for his immortal show at the Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles in July and August 1962, and which is famously housed in the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In the intervening period he had produced the series Dollar Bills, Coca-Cola Bottles, Suicides, Disasters, and Silver Electric Chairs, all in addition to the portrait cycles of Marilyn and Liz. This explosive outpouring of astonishing artistic invention stands as definitive testament to Warhol's aptitude to seize the most potent images of his time. He recognized that not only the product itself, but also the means of consumption - in this case society's abandoned deification of Elvis - was symptomatic of a new mode of existence. As Heiner Bastian has precisely summated: "the aura of utterly affirmative idolization already stands as a stereotype of a 'consumer-goods style' expression of an American way of life and of the mass-media culture of a nation." (Exh. Cat., Berlin, Neue Nationalgalerie (and traveling), Andy Warhol: Retrospective, 2001, p. 28). For Warhol, the act of image replication and multiplication anaesthetized the effect of the subject, and while he had undermined the potency of wealth in 200 One Dollar Bills, and cheated the terror of death by electric chair in Silver Disaster # 6, the proliferation of Elvis here emasculates a prefabricated version of character authenticity. Here the cinematic quality of variety within unity is apparent in the degrees to which Presley's arm and gun become less visible to the left of the canvas. The sense of movement is further enhanced by a sense of receding depth as the viewer is presented with the ghost like repetition of the figure in the left of the canvas, a 'jump effect' in the screening process that would be replicated in the multiple Elvis paintings. The seriality of the image heightens the sense of a moving image, displayed for us like the unwinding of a reel of film. Elvis was central to Warhol's legendary solo exhibition organized by Irving Blum at the Ferus Gallery in the Fall of 1963 - the show having been conceived around the Elvis paintings since at least May of that year. A well-known installation photograph shows the present work prominently presented among the constant reel of canvases, designed to fill the space as a filmic diorama. While the Elvis canvases...

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