"I want to be as famous as the Queen of England" > Andy Warhol's Acrylic & Silkscreen Work of Queen Elizabeth II

London – On June 27, Christie's will offer for sale Andy Warhol’s Reigning Queens: Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, one of the most striking works that the artist completed during the 1980s. This magnificent portrait of Queen Elizabeth II is estimated at £400,000- 800,000; illustrated above.  

Larger than life-size and resonating with colour and vitality, this image stands as Warhol’s personal tribute to one of the most famous women in the world. Throughout his life Warhol had been fascinated by celebrity and fame, and had expended much of his energy trying to find the spotlight and to stay firmly in it. With Queen Elizabeth II Warhol became entranced by a woman whose status and power had been ordained from birth. Resplendent against a background of regal blue, Warhol renders the Queen’s features in shades of emerald green and purple with highlight accents of neon red and white.

Painted nearly a decade after the national celebrations for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee (the source image is the official photographic portrait from that year), this work demonstrates Warhol’s considerable technical skill and aesthetic vision to produce not only a radically different interpretation of one of the most famous women in the world, but also to re-examine the conventions of portraiture itself. This portrait of Queen Elizabeth II is distinguished by both its size and chromatic intensity. It features a commanding image of the Queen confronting the viewer face on, unlike the oblique angle employed in many other royal portraits. The choice of rich blue monochrome for both the background and the Queen’s hair forces our attention onto her face which is rendered in a lighter tone of mauve that appears radiant against the darker ground. Within the face, Warhol highlights the eyes and lips; features he places like a sparkling ruby and glowing sapphires in the setting of this magisterial visage. 

All these features are further enhanced by Warhol’s use of neon highlights, which emphasize the contours of the Queen’s face and jewellery. With this portrait, Warhol democratises the persona of the Queen implying that much of her power and influence is derived from her strength and charisma as an individual.  

Arno Verkade, Head of Evening Auction, Post-War and Contemporary Art, London, commented: “In this great year of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee, Christie’s is delighted to be celebrating the sixty years of her reign with a radiant portrait by Andy Warhol. Created in 1985 it forms part of the artist’s celebrated series, Reigning Queens, depicting four female monarchs: Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and Queen Ntombi of Swaziland. Accepted by the Guinness Book of Records as the Most Recognisable Person in the World, the image of Queen Elizabeth II has been reproduced more times that anyone else in history, making her the ultimate subject for Warhol’s obsession with fame and celebrity”.

POST-WAR & CONTEMPORARY ART EVENING AUCTION 

London, King Street - 27 June 2012, 7pm