Andy Warhol

Christ $9.98 (negative and positive)

1985–6

© 2023 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by DACS, London

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In Tate Modern

Media Networks: Andy Warhol and Mark Bradford (Room 1)

Free

Artist: Andy Warhol 1928–1987
Medium: Acrylic paint and silkscreen on 2 canvases
Dimensions: Support: 510 × 405 × 18 mm
support: 510 × 410 × 22 mm
Collection: ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
Acquisition: ARTIST ROOMS Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
Reference: AR00239

Online caption

During the mid 1980s Warhol returned to the newspaper adverts that had informed his paintings of the early 1960s. He created a group of works called ‘Ads and Illustrations’ that differed from his photographic screenprints and highly stylised images of celebrities. They are mostly black and white and were created by tracing the original adverts by hand, which creates a looser, graphic quality. During the 1980s the U.S.A. was still in the depths of the Cold War. Within this context three themes emerge in these paintings: war, death and religion. Warhol was devoutly Catholic and was raised surrounded by religious iconography. This image of Christ relates to this theme but also the positive/negative aspect of to the diptych can be seen as echoing the Cold War conflict.