ANDY WARHOL

Original Works and Silkscreens

30 August – 27 September 2009

 It is now seven years since Narborough Hall in Norfolk first opened its  house and   grounds to visitors. In that time it has played host to a succession of highly acclaimed exhibitions of the works of internationally recognized artists, including Barry Flanagan, David Inshaw, Bridget Riley, Ivon Hitchens, and John Piper.

This year it is the turn of Andy Warhol (1928-1987),who was, arguably, the most influential artist of his generation, the father of Pop Art, and a creator and reflector of images, that made him a lightning conductor for the zeitgeist of the artworld from the 1960’s, for a whole generation. This is a rare opportunity to see a large exhibition of his in Eastern England and this collection includes both unique works and silkscreens – and occasionally a combination of both media - as in the ‘Vesuvius’ works of 1985, which appear here to dramatic effect in the form of two unique works, and one screenprint.

In Heiner Bastian’s essay ‘Rituals of Unfulfillable Individuality – The Whereabouts of Emotions’ written as a forward for his book ‘ Andy Warhol Retrospective’, he talks about the assasination in Dallas of John F. Kennedy on 22nd November, 1963, and how “Warhol recognised the press photographs of the grieving widow, Jackie Kennedy, as the portrait that mirrored the whole of the double-edged trauma that had struck the United States.  The originals that he used for his silkscreen paintings are the memorable ‘face object’, in which the inexplicable nature of the event itself and the sense of being damned take on the qualities of a myth, since for a brief moment in time the whole world only ‘sees’ sadness in this face…”.  Amongst the highlights of this exhibition, are two images (1966) of Jackie Kennedy, one a screenprint in silver, and the other a colour silkscreen.