Andy Warhol
American, 1928–87
Dracula
1981
Diffusion transfer print
Gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc., The Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program.
2008.02.96
Gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc., The Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program. 2008.02.96
Between 1971 and 1987, Andy Warhol took nearly 40,000 Polaroid photographs. The snapshots were used mostly as preparatory studies for his silkscreen paintings, though some were treated as finished works. The Polaroid’s shallow depth of field, along with the white makeup, flattens the features of each sitter, reducing them to their essential characteristics. Warhol’s treatment of socialites and actors in these Polaroids transforms them with a wash of uniformity that underscores the sameness of celebrity.
-Body Language: Picturing People, CU Art Museum, July 18, 2019 —June 2020