Prints of Andy Warhol

History

Andy Warhol began exploring creating limited edition and unique prints in the early 1960s. Warhol's prints that he issued between 1962 and 1968 were the predecessors to his more formal recorded editions. Indeed, Warhol did not regard these single prints and small run prints as multiples, but rather as unique drawings. For these early prints, Warhol primarily worked in screen printing, both on paper and on Plexiglass.

After early experimentation, Andy Warhol engaged in many types of printmaking. There were his edition prints, created over two and a half decades, that were limited in number. During this time, he continued to created unique edition prints, where each impression varied slightly, typically in color.
It is fascinating to see Warhol's trial proofs of his prints, because one can examine the artist's decision-making processes regarding color and composition. Warhol also created many single prints as personal projects, or as studies for other work.
From the late 1960s through the mid-1980s, Warhol created many prints as part of commissions for magazines, album covers, books, posters, wine labels, rock posters and advertising campaigns.

What most typifies an Andy Warhol print is its subject matter. Pop art was about contemporary culture, mass market images and the media. Warhol's most famous prints feature Campbell's soup cans, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Micky Mouse. Colors are unnatural and bright, referring to the colors used in commercial packaging and advertising. Warhol's embracing of the aesthetic of consumer products alienated many critics.

An examination of Pop Art prints should occur in context with the art movements prior to Andy Warhol's career. Most notably, Abstract Expressionism, very fashionable in the 1950s, was considered elitist by some people. Its lack of representation made it not immediately comprehensible to many people.
Hence, pop artists sought to utilize the recognizable icons of contemporary society to broaden pop art's audience. Many art historians call pop art the last major movement of modernism before the age of contemporary or postmodern art.

Andy Warhol was fascinated by the process and results of printmaking. The artist describes his discovery, "In August '62, I started doing silkscreens. I wanted something stronger that gave more of an assembly line effect. With silk screening you pick a photograph, blow it up, transfer it in glue onto silk, and then roll ink across it so the ink goes through the silk but not through the glue.
That way you get the same image, slightly different each time. It was all so simple, quick and chancy. I was thrilled with it. When Marilyn Monroe happened to die that month, I got the idea to make screens of her beautiful face, the first Marilyns."