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Andy Warhol
National Velvet, 1963

Artwork Info

Artwork title
National Velvet
Artist name
Andy Warhol
Date created
1963
Classification
painting
Medium
silver paint, silkscreen ink, and graphite on linen
Dimensions
145 1/2 × 85 3/4 in. (369.6 × 217.9 cm)
Date acquired
1993
Credit
Collection SFMOMA
Accessions Committee Fund purchase: gift of Barbara and Gerson Bakar, Doris and Donald Fisher, Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr., Mimi and Peter Haas, Byron R. Meyer, Helen and Charles Schwab, Danielle and Brooks Walker, Jr., and Judy C. Webb; Albert M. Bender Fund; Tishler Trust; Victor Bergeron Fund; Members' Accessions Fund; and gift of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Copyright
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Permanent URL
https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/93.376
Artwork status
Not on view at this time.

Audio Stories

What drew the artist to the young Elizabeth Taylor?

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NARRATOR: 

This huge work by Andy Warhol has a silver background, with images that seem to flicker across it—much like a movie. A silver screen. Its title is National Velvet. Maybe youre not familiar with the film of that name? It starred the then-12-year-old Elizabeth Taylor. Heres curator Gary Garrels: 

 

GARY GARRELS:

This painting is one of the most monumental paintings Warhol ever executed, certainly in the early period. Its over 11 feet high. The painting starts from a photographic reproduction, probably from a studio film still. The first image, in the upper left corner, appears very photographic. It has more of the grayness of the photographic image in it. And then through different degrees of pressure and amount of inking going on, the images either saturate so they become blurred and over-inked, or they begin to fade and disappear. And by the time you get to the bottom of the canvas, the image is almost like a ghost.  

 

NARRATOR: 

Warhol used Taylor as the subject of many works. Here, as a glimmering child actress, an icon of innocence.  

 

GARRELS: 

She is a great film star. But at the same time, she partakes of human tragedy, and I think thats intimated in the way this picture is looked at. So its also very interesting that people tend to think of Warhol as a quintessential Pop artist — that is, without a great deal of psychological quality. Whereas in fact, Warhol was one of the most complex psychological painters I think of the late 20th century.

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