3650 - ANDY WARHOL

ANDY WARHOL (Pittsburgh 1928–1987 New York City) Neuschwanstein. 1987. Colour screenprint. TP, one of 25 trial proofs in unique colour combinations, outside the edition of 100. Signed in pencil lower left in the image: Andy Warhol. Verso with the artist’s copyright stamp. Image 89.2 × 68.8 cm on Arches 88 wove paper 109.5 × 77.2 cm. Published by Editions Schellmann, Munich/New York City, and Sabine Knust, Munich. Printed by Rupert Jasen Smith, New York City (with blindstamp). Provenance: - Galerie Sabine Knust – Maximilian Verlag, Munich. - Private collection, Germany, acquired from the above gallery in 2000. Exhibited: Feldmann/Schellmann, no. IIB.372. When Andy Warhol chose Neuschwanstein Castle as the subject of one of his last printmaking projects, two seemingly disparate visual worlds came together: the romantic, fantastical imagination of Bavaria’s King Ludwig II and the formally pared-down, vividly coloured language of American Pop Art. On closer examination, however, a surprising affinity emerges. Though separated by more than a century, Ludwig II and Warhol shared a keen awareness of the power of carefully staged images. Beginning in 1869, Ludwig II commissioned a vision of a medieval knight’s castle near Hohenschwangau, inspired less by historical models than by his own idea of the Middle Ages. Drawing on Richard Wagner and medieval legends, he created a private retreat in which history was imagined rather than reconstructed. Just weeks after the king’s death, the castle opened to the public in 1886. What began as one man’s personal fantasy became an internationally familiar image: Neuschwanstein was transformed into a postcard subject, a tourist landmark and a focus for romantic longing. The castle is also regarded as one of the inspirations for Walt Disney’s ‘Sleeping Beauty Castle’, which in turn helped shape the image of a fairytale castle around the world. It is precisely here that Neuschwanstein touches on a central principle of Warhol’s artistic practice. From the early 1960s onwards, he drew on subjects already firmly embedded in collective visual memory through their circulation in the media. For Warhol, Neuschwanstein Castle was therefore not merely a building, but a widely reproduced image charged with cultural and historical associations. In the colour screenprint published in 1987, he overlays the photographic source with drawn outlines and intense areas of colour. The castle remains instantly recognisable, yet its colouring is entirely divorced from its natural appearance. The print derives its distinctive effect from this interplay between recognition and transformation. The 25 trial proofs, produced alongside the regular edition of 100, occupy a special place within the edition. Each proof has its own colour combination, providing a compelling counterpoint to a body of work so closely associated with serial reproduction. Variations in colour give each print an individual character, even within the same printmaking process. Colour is not merely a decorative addition, but fundamentally shapes how the subject is perceived. In the present example, pink, violet, blue, black, white and silver transform the familiar Alpine landscape into a deliberately artificial world of colour. The fact that ‘Neuschwanstein’ was created in 1987, the year of Warhol’s death, lends the work further art-historical significance. It is among his final printmaking projects and brings together themes that shaped his work for decades: the appropriation of familiar images, their circulation through mass media, and the relationship between repetition, variation and individual artistic intervention. In the trial proofs, these tensions emerge with particular clarity. * The full tax is charged on this item marked *, i.e. VAT is charged on the sum will be refunded to Purchasers providing a validly stamped export declaration.