Goethe (F. & S. II.271)
Goethe (F. & S. II.271)
Signed Print
Andy Warhol
£40,000-£60,000Value Indicator
$80,000-$120,000 Value Indicator
$70,000-$110,000 Value Indicator
¥390,000-¥590,000 Value Indicator
€45,000-€70,000 Value Indicator
$430,000-$640,000 Value Indicator
¥7,890,000-¥11,830,000 Value Indicator
$50,000-$80,000 Value Indicator
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96 x 96cm, Edition of 100, Screenprint
Medium: Screenprint
Edition size: 100
Year: 1982
Size: H 96cm x W 96cm
Signed: Yes
Format: Signed Print
Last Auction: September 2024
Value Trend:
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Meaning & Analysis
Sitting within a tradition of portraits by Andy Warhol of famous historical figures, Goethe (F. & S.II.271) is a print from the artists Goethe series (1982) that shows an image of the leading cultural hero Johann Wolfgang von Geothe. Considered to be the greatest German literary figure of modern times, Goethe was a polymath who became a prominent philosopher, scientist and colour theorist. Infatuated with the concept of fame, Goethe was an apt subject for Warhol to transform into a 1980s Pop Art icon.
Goethe (F. & S. II.271) is based on a painting of Goethe by Johan Tischbein, regarded as the most famous portrait in Germany. Much like his works inspired by the Mona Lisa in 1963, Warhol takes the original iconic painting and subverts it to call into question high art ideals on originality, authorship and what constitutes the value of art. In this iteration of the image, Warhol has removed the landscape background to focus instead on Goethe’s profile, in the style of his portraits from the 1960s of Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe..
This portrait is produced with stark contrasts of colour with pops of red, pink, blue and yellow against a light blue backdrop, working to flatten the original image and render Goethe’s profile into a piece of Pop Art. Warhol also uses graphic lines to contour the image and presents a dichotomy between classical portraiture and the resulting Pop aesthetic. By staging Goethe, a figure of the classical past, as a superstar in the present, Warhol reflects on how mass media can change public perception of reality.
Andy Warhol was a leading figure of the Pop Art movement and is often considered the father of Pop Art. Born in 1928, Warhol allowed cultural references of the 20th century to drive his work. From the depiction of glamorous public figures, such as Marilyn Monroe, to the everyday Campbell’s Soup Can, the artist challenged what was considered art by blurring the boundaries between high art and mass consumerism. Warhol's preferred screen printing technique further reiterated his obsession with mass culture, enabling art to be seen as somewhat of a commodity through the reproduced images in multiple colour ways.
