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Andy Warhol, Silkprint Kettner, and others

Electric Chair

1971

Scroll

Electric Chair

1971

Physical Qualities Color screenprint, Sheet: 902 × 1219 mm. (35 1/2 × 48 in.)
Portfolio/Series From the portfolio 'Electric Chairs'
Credit Line Sidney M. Friedberg Accessions Fund for Prints and Drawings
Object Number 1991.199.6
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.
Kristen Hileman, West Wing rotation, 1 November 2017 - 22 July 2018.

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