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Andy Warhol, Bruno Bischofberger, and others

Electric Chair

1970

Scroll

Electric Chair

1970

Physical Qualities Color screenprint, Sheet: 902 × 1219 mm. (35 1/2 × 48 in.)
Credit Line Sidney M. Friedberg Accessions Fund for Prints and Drawings
Object Number 1991.199.5
Transforming images of disaster—actual or implied—into candy-colored emblems of mass production is a quality Andy Warhol brings to his many paintings and screenprints. In this series on the electric chair, Warhol takes a single searing image and repeats it with relentless decorative flair, each time delivering the horrific content in a soft palette of pinks, blues and yellows. Often the impressions are hazy, suggesting a distant memory or nightmare that cannot be shaken. A master of manipulation who drew constantly from the media and popular press, Warhol treats the image of the electric chair as an emblem of death and commerce, provocatively combining the decorative and the profound in succinct visual terms.
Darsie Alexander, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, "Front Room: Ripple Effect," May 30 - September 2, 2007.

Kristen Hileman, West Wing rotation, 26 August 2010 - 20 January 2011.

Artist

Andy Warhol

1927–1986

born Pittsburgh, PA 1928; died New York, NY 1987
Meet Andy Warhol

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