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 you’re not familiar with the film of that name? It starred the then-12-year-old Elizabeth Taylor. Here’s curator Gary Garrels: 

GARY GARRELS:

This painting is one of the most monumental paintings Warhol ever executed, certainly in the early period. It’s 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 that’s intimated in the way this picture is looked at. So it’s 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.