This massive, nearly three-meter-square Self-Portrait is a work from Warhol’s great last series of self-portraits done in 1986 and consists only of a flat, brilliant fiery-red silkscreen picture of him imprinted like a single and dramatic paint-splash over the black emptiness of the canvas.
One of the greatest self-portraits of the 20th century is this enormous but simple, even in some ways minimalist, image of the artist’s famous but time-worn face peering tentatively out from under the wild hair of his instantly recognizable “fright-wig,” which is thought to be one of only five versions (green, blue, purple, yellow, and here, red), made on this monumental scale.
The painting is a rather uncommon self-exposure that seamlessly combines art and photography into one instantly recognizable image.
It is a massive and rather gloomy icon of an icon, but it is also, like so many late self-portraits of artists throughout history, a timeless portrait of a great artist facing the certainty of his own impending death and exit from the light of existence.
One of Warhol’s most recognizable, poignant, and ultimately meaningful body of work is his final series of self-portraits.
This series of self-portraits, which were among the last works he completed before he did, in fact, pass away suddenly and unexpectedly in February 1987 as a result of complications following a routine gall bladder operation, has since gained a sense of foresight and an uncanny sense of contemporaneity that has contributed significantly to the legend of Warhol as a modern-day seer.
In these pieces, the “somewhat unearthly… and terrifying oracle,” as Calvin Tomkins once put it, who “made apparent what was happening in some part to us all,” appears to be hinting to his own demise.(Calvin Tomkins, ‘Raggedy Andy’ in Andy Warhol exh. cat., Eindhoven. 1970. p. 10.)
