Liza Minnelli (Warhol)
1978 painting by Andy Warhol
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Liza Minnelli is a 1978 painting by American artist Andy Warhol depicting actress and singer Liza Minnelli. Created from Polaroid photographs taken at the Factory, the painting is one of several silkscreen paintings Warhol produced of Minnelli during the late 1970s, when portraiture dominated his artistic output. In addition to presenting Minnelli with a miniature 14 × 14-inch portrait as a gift, Warhol completed commissioned standard size 40 × 40-inch works.
| Liza Minnelli | |
|---|---|
| |
| Artist | Andy Warhol |
| Year | 1978 |
| Medium | Acrylic and silkscreen enamel on canvas |
| Movement | Pop Art |
| Subject | Liza Minnelli |
| Dimensions | 102 cm × 102 cm (40 in × 40 in) |
Background
In the 1960s, Pop artist Andy Warhol rose to prominence with his paintings of Campbell's Soup Cans (1961–62), portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and Elizabeth Taylor.[1] As his career evolved, Warhol became a leading figure in New York's underground film movement, producing experimental films such as Sleep (1964), Empire (1965), and Chelsea Girls (1966).[2] In 1969, Warhol co-founded Interview, initially conceived as a film journal; the magazine eventually became a "reflection of Andy's social life."[3] In the 1970s, portraiture had become the primary focus of his artistic practice, and he was widely known for producing commissioned portraits of celebrities, socialites, and wealthy patrons.[1][2]
Warhol first met actress and singer Liza Minnelli at the Scene in New York City in August 1965.[4] In his memoir POPism: The Warhol '60s (1980), he recalled: "Liza Minnelli was there with Peter Allen—I think they were engaged then, Judy had fixed them up. Liza was just starting out, doing Flora the Red Menace on Broadway, dancing with a cast on her leg, even. At the Scene that night I saw a couple of guys pointing out Liza's and Edie's legs as the best in town."[4] Their friendship developed in the early 1970s through their mutual friend, fashion designer Halston.[5]
Minnelli first appeared on the cover of Interview magazine in 1972 and returned as a cover star several more times throughout her career.[6][7] She and Warhol often socialized together, and he attended her shows.[8][9] In the late 1970s, Warhol, Minnelli, Halston, and Bianca Jagger became closely associated with New York's Studio 54 nightclub.[10] Warhol documented their outings in photographs,[11] and Minnelli is frequently mentioned in The Andy Warhol Diaries (1989).[12][13] Warhol had a fascination with Hollywood and admiration for actress Judy Garland since childhood.[11] He recalled saving pennies to see every Garland film and that "it's so great to be good friends with her daughters, Liza Minnelli and Lorna Luft."[11] He compared the sisters to "Jackie and Lee," describing their boundless energy and said that they often persuaded him to do things he "normally wouldn't."[11] He added, "Liza has what Diana Vreeland calls 'built-in show biz.' Diana was talking about Lucie Arnaz, another one of my favorite singers and dancers, but it applies to all the children of Hollywood stars. They grew up not knowing the difference between acting and real life, so they're the best actors in the world."[11]
In February 1978, Minnelli sat for Warhol at the Factory, where he photographed her with a Polaroid camera as the basis for a series of portraits.[14] From these photographs, Warhol presented Minnelli with a unique small portrait for her Tony Award nomination, which she eventually won for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical for The Act at the 32nd Tony Awards.[5] The reverse of the canvas bears the inscription: "to LIZA (Happy Tony) Andy Warhol 78."[5] Minnelli also commissioned larger standard size portraits for $25,000.[15]
In a later interview, Minnelli reflected on Warhol's portrait of her, stating: "He made me see myself and my parents differently. He found emotional colors that I'd never noticed before."[6] She added, "I will always cherish what Andy captured. I see his brilliance every day," while gesturing toward her heart.[6]
Production
On February 17, 1978, Minnelli visited the Factory to sit for Warhol.[14] The artist photographed her with a Polaroid camera, using the images as the basis for a series of silkscreen portraits. In his diary, Warhol wrote that Minnelli was initially nervous during the sitting, but "she was wearing the right makeup and all the pictures came out good."[14]
Warhol later recounted the session in Exposures (1979), describing the excitement that accompanied Minnelli's visit to the Factory.[11] He wrote that "Whenever Liza walks into a room everything stops and people wait for the act to begin," recalling that work came to a halt as members of the Factory staff gathered to watch her eat lunch.[11] During the sitting, musician John Lennon unexpectedly arrived at the Factory because he was working with Warhol's printer Rupert Jasen Smith.[14][11] Minnelli, who had never met Lennon, eagerly rushed to greet him, prompting Warhol to remark, "It's really great to be there when two big stars collide, especially if you have your camera and your tape recorder. They looked so adorable together. They should do a show together. I'd love to produce it."[11]
For the photo session, Minnelli wore the red sequined Halston costume from her 1977 Broadway musical The Act.[11] After she left, Warhol collected the sequins that had fallen from her costume, writing, "I put them in a paper bag. I'm saving them."[11]
Description
Each 40 × 40-inch (102 × 102 cm) portrait depicts Minnelli's head and shoulders against a monochromatic background.[16] Based on a Polaroid photograph taken by Warhol at the Factory, the paintings emphasize her signature cropped black hair, pale skin, red lips, and expressive eyes.[14][17] The photographic image was silkscreened and hand-painted in acrylic onto canvas. Warhol produced the portraits in different color combinations, varying the background and facial tones while retaining the same underlying photographic image.[18]
Interpretation
Art historian Robert Rosenblum compared Warhol's portraits of Minnelli to Édouard Manet's Olympia, arguing that Warhol flattened her face through the effects of flash photography and cosmetics, reducing the image to abrupt contrasts of light and dark.[16] He wrote that Warhol had "retouched reality to push his pictorial facts to a two-dimensional extreme," in which "middle values vanish" as the sitter's features are compressed into the flatness of paint and canvas.[16] Despite this artificial façade, Rosenblum contended that the portraits retain a powerful emotional presence, observing that "from behind this brash silhouette, a pair of all too human, almost tearful eyes returns our gaze."[16]
Exhibitions
Two of the portraits were included in Andy Warhol: Portraits of the '70s, a retrospective organized by David Whitney at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City from November 1979, to January 1980.[19][16] Surveying Warhol's portrait commissions of the decade, the exhibition featured more than one hundred 40 × 40-inch paintings, two portraits of each subject.[20] An accompanying book was published by Random House.[20]
In 1989, two Liza Minnelli portraits were included in Andy Warhol: A Retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the first major retrospective of the artist's work following his death.[21][22]
In 2002, two Liza Minnelli portraits were included in Andy Warhol Retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.[23]
In 2005, two Liza Minnelli portraits were exhibited in Dia's Andy at Dia:Beacon in Beacon, New York, an exhibition commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.[24]
A portrait of Minelli was included in the retrospective Andy Warhol—From A to B and Back Again at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City from November 2018 to March 2019.[25]
Critical reception
Reviewing Andy Warhol: Portraits of the '70s at the Whitney for the News Journal, Gary Mullinax wrote that Warhol's portraits of Minnelli demonstrated how he could intensify her "characteristic appearance" without obscuring her "normal countenance."[26] He observed that the "garish acrylic embellishments" layered over the silkscreened photographs heightened Minnelli's "dark doe eyes and bright red lips."[26] Mullinax argued that the portraits were not representations of reality but "embellishments of other images," since the source photographs already mediated the public's perception of Minnelli.[26] He concluded that Warhol "makes fictions of fictions," using celebrity portraiture to explore the elusive nature of reality and the constructed image of fame, and described him as "the perfect artist for our time."[26]
In a review for the Daily News, John Daxland wrote that Warhol's combination of silkscreen photography and acrylic paint produced "lucid and sometimes exciting visual images."[17] He praised the Liza Minnelli portraits as "radiant panels showing bright red lips and big round eyes—they seem happy," contrasting their exuberance with Warhol's more subdued portrait of Golda Meir.[17]
Art market
The 14 × 14-inch Liza (1978) that Warhol gifted to Minnelli remained in her personal collection for more than three decades before it sold for $902,500 at Christie's in New York in November 2011.[5]