General Custer (F. & S. II.379)
General Custer (F. & S. II.379)
Signed Print
Andy Warhol
91 x 91cm, Edition of 250, Screenprint, 1986
£30,000-£50,000
$60,000-$90,000 Market Value Indicator
$60,000-$90,000 Market Value Indicator
¥280,000-¥460,000 Market Value Indicator
€35,000-€60,000 Market Value Indicator
$320,000-$530,000 Market Value Indicator
¥6,490,000-¥10,810,000 Market Value Indicator
$40,000-$70,000 Market Value Indicator
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Meaning & Analysis
Printed in 1986, General Custer (F. & S. II.379) is a signed screen print by Andy Warhol that depicts a portrait of the controversial historical figure, General George Armstrong Custer, who was a commander during the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars. The side profile portrait is rendered in bright colours with yellow and blue gestural lines delineating Custer's figure and facial expression. In this print, Custer is portrayed side on, with his arms crossed, in a serious and powerful pose. The colours in this print are more conventional than other, more eclectic prints in the series, which reflect Warhol's creative use of colour. Like many of the other prints in the series, Custer is rendered against a white backdrop, abstracting him from his historical context.
General Custer (F. & S. II.379) is one of ten graphic screen prints, printed on Lenox Museum Board, that compose the Cowboys And Indians series. In this series, Warhol typically takes archetypal figures and objects that capture America’s romanticised vision of the American West. The choice of subject in this print, General Custer, who was responsible for a large part of the destruction of Native American land can be seen as emblematic of the way in which America’s actions in the West were glorified in the cultural imaginary. Indeed, as opposed to portraying Native Americans and Cowboys in their historical landscape, Warhol makes a concentrated effort to portray a popular version of the West, the version familiar to everyone who had watched Western films and TV shows.
The print was made using Warhol's signature screen printing method. The screen printing technique is known for its capacity to mass-produce imagery to be widely distributed. The technique mirrors the way in which images of the West were disseminated across America in popular culture, thus highlighting the distorted vision of history obtained through its depictions in popular culture.
