Kimiko Powers

Details

Andy Warhol (1928-1987)
Kimiko Powers
signed and inscribed '4B3 Andy Warhol' (on the overlap)
synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen inks on canvas
40 x 40in. (101.5 x 101.5cm.)
Executed in 1972

Provenance

Anon. sale, Sotheby's London, 5 November 1987, lot 157 (one of the four parts).
Susan Sheehan Gallery, New York.
Acquired from the above by the previous owner.

Literature

D. Bourdon, Warhol, New York 1989, no. 254 (one of the series of twenty-five works illustrated, p. 329).
H. Geldzahlher, Andy Warhol: Portrais of the Seventies and Eighties, New York 1993 (one of the series of twenty-five works illustrated).
Pop Art: The John and Kimiko Powers Collection, exh. cat., Gagosian Gallery, New York 2001 (one of the series of twenty-five works illustrated).

Exhibited

Corpus Christi, Art Museum of South Texas, Johns, Stella, Warhol: Work in Series, October-November 1972.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium

Lot Essay

"Warhol offered his clients an irresistible product: a stylish and flattering portrait by a famous artist who was himself a certified celebrity. Conferring an alluring star presence upon even the most celebrated of faces, he transformed his subjects into glamorous apparitions, presenting their faces as he thought they wanted to be seen and remembered. By filtering his sitters' good features through his silkscreens and exaggerating their vivacity, he enabled them to gain entree to a more mythic and rarefied level of existence. The possesion of great wealth and power might do for everyday life, but the commissioning of a portrait by Warhol was a sure indication that the sitter intended to secure posthumous fame as well. Warhol's portraits were not so much realistic documents of contemporary faces as they were designer icons awaiting future devotions" (D. Bourdon, Warhol, New York 1989, p. 327).

Kimiko Powers

Lot Essay

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