Andy Warhol
Hamburger, 1986
Acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas
Signed, dedicated and dated “To Robert, Love Andy Warhol 86” on the overlap
Stamped by the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board and numbered A106.111 on the overlap
10 × 12 in / 25.4 × 30.5 cm
PRICE UPON REQUEST
For comparison, recently, at Phillips New York: Wednesday, November 16, 2022 [Lot 00171] in the 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale a work this same size from the same year in the same condition, also Stamped by the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board but without any dedication in the signature, sold for $176,400 USD.
Andy Warhol Eating a Hamburger Video
Hamburger (1986) is a duplicated image of an advertisement, silkscreened in black onto canvas with a white background. In this high contrast reproduction the original image has been simplified to the extent that most of the detail has been lost and only the black outline remains. The central line of text exclaims ‘HAMBURGER’ in capital letters, with the words ‘Wholesome’ and ‘Delicious’ in smaller text beneath, with no reference to a particular brand name. Warhol doubled the image to form a diptych, which has then been set within one frame to make a single work. The light coloured background and black ink mark a departure from the bold colours of Warhol’s earlier prints.
Hamburger is one of several works created by Warhol in the mid-1980s in which he revisited the forms and motifs of his work from the 1960s. This work was part of a series called Ads and Illustrations of which there are other examples in the ARTIST ROOMS collection. The advertisements were primarily taken from newspapers, traced by hand and then printed onto canvas. As such they have a looser, graphic quality than the artist’s highly stylised photo-silkscreen works printed from Polaroid photographs. This particular silkscreen was reused multiple times. In other versions of Hamburger Warhol experimented with different colours for the background and the text, such as red printed on yellow. Despite these changes, however, he maintained the simple two-tone scheme throughout the series.
Warhol’s choice of subject matter speaks to the artist’s interest in Americana (objects that epitomise American culture). In a 1977 interview for the magazine High Times Warhol responded to the question, ‘What do you like to eat?’ with the remark, ‘Just plain food. Plain American food’ (quoted in O’Brien 1977, p.259). The hamburger in particular was a recurrent motif in Warhol’s work. For instance, in a short video from 1981 Warhol filmed himself eating a hamburger alone at a table, in silence, with an impassive expression. Despite its repeated use in the artist’s work, the meaning attached to the hamburger motif was often ambiguous. That Warhol chose to revisit this iconic subject in the Ads and Illustrations series is noteworthy. The other silkscreen prints from this series in the ARTIST ROOMS collection make direct references to war, spirituality and religion in Reagan-era America. Yet although Hamburger seems to offer a more anodyne subject matter, it might be interpreted within the context of the escalation of the Cold War and the ensuing public fears of the nuclear threat from the Soviet Union. Specifically, the lines radiating outwards from the centre of the image, together with the bulbous shape of the burger bun, visually refer to the outline of an atomic mushroom cloud. In this way Hamburger articulates both American optimism and Cold War anxiety. Curator Vincent Fremont has observed that this series of paintings not only echoes the politics of America in the 1980s, but also ‘continues to bluntly reflect the world we live in today’, with similar anxieties and concerns following us into the twenty-first century (Buchloh and Fremont 2002, p.18).
Further reading:
Glenn O’Brien, ‘Interview: Andy Warhol’ (1977) in Kenneth Goldsmith (ed.), I’ll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews: 1962–1987, New York 2004, pp.233–64.
Benjamin Buchloh and Vincent Fremont, Andy Warhol: B&W Paintings, Ads and Illustrations 1985–1986, exhibition catalogue, Gagosian Gallery, New York and London 2002, reproduced p.19.
Frayda Feldman and Jörg Schellmann, Andy Warhol Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné 1962–1987, New York 2003, p.354, reproduced p.255.
Andy Warhol, born Andrew Warhola, was born August 6, 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Warhol attended Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) where he majored in pictorial design. After graduating, Warhol worked with several magazines such as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and The New Yorker working as an illustrator.
During the 1950's Warhol led a successful career as a commercial artist. In 1952 he had his first solo show at the Hugo Gallery, New York and by 1956 Warhol was included in his first group exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The 1960's proved to be the decade that produced work of prime significance in Warhol's career, with brand name American products, such as Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962, and Brillo Box (Soap Pads), 1964, which solidified Warhol's place as one of the pioneering figures of emerging Pop art. Also during this period, Warhol created works of famous American icons including Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Elizabeth Taylor, and Jacqueline Kennedy.
Warhol founded Interview Magazine in the 1970's and continued his work. During this time Warhol investigated several themes ranging fro Mao and Hammers and Sickles to numerous commissioned portraits of jet-set celebrities.
Warhol died February 22, 1987 in New York City after complications from a routine gall bladder surgery. In 1989 the Museum of Modern Art, New York, honored the artist with a major retrospective of his work. The Andy Warhol Museum opened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in May of 1994.
