Andy Warhol: The Portfolios, Dulwich Picture Gallery - review

With both iconic and lesser-known pieces, these works from the Bank of America collection offer much joy. A shrewder selection would however have made for a better show
Sarah Bernhardt, 1980, from Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century. Muhammad Ali, 1978
25 June 2012

Andy Warhol was always a printmaker. Even the works we call paintings were made using silkscreen techniques cribbed from commercial printing, the distinction being that Warhol used the technique to produce one-offs on canvas, albeit on an industrial scale rather than multiple editions of images on paper.

From 1967 onwards, though, he began to create the “portfolios”: groups of 10 works produced in editions of 100 to 250. This selection of the series, alongside one-off trial prints made while searching for definitive colour variations, is drawn entirely from the Bank of America collection.

Many reprise famous images — the Campbells soup cans, the flowers — but in others Warhol adds age-old artistic genres, such as still life and landscape, to his canon, hence the exhibition’s presence alongside the old masters at Dulwich.

The portfolios allowed Warhol to show off his scintillating sense of colour. In the first room here, on silver walls, are the flowers of 1970, based on the same photograph of hibiscus blooms he had used from 1964.

Dizzyingly bright hues abound — in one print, the original photograph is almost obliterated as orange, turquoise and yellow petals sit against bright pink and red foliage.

Warhol gradually evolved his language from flat areas of colour that filled in the underlying photograph to freer improvisation. In portraits of Muhammad Ali, swatches of bright colour overlap the image with an abstract vigour reminiscent of Matisse’s paper cutouts.

Warhol’s sinuous drawing style, a hallmark of his early illustrations, also makes a comeback after years of absence, weaving in and out with the photographic image, echoing the spindly elegance of Jean Cocteau’s drawings. The 10 images of Jews of the 20th century, made in 1980, are a high point, particularly in a beautiful depiction of Sarah Bernhardt, where rectangles of red, blue and pink jostle over Warhol’s delicate line.

But the Eighties portfolios reflect how uneven Warhol got in his last decade. The Myths series, featuring folkloric and fictional icons, and particularly the Endangered Species portfolio, are Warhol-by-numbers: ideal for T-shirts and posters but numbing as art.

Dulwich’s display doesn’t help — the prints are often double hung, which works for historical paintings but has a queasy effect here. If Warhol’s colours are to sing rather than sicken, he needs lots of space. There is much to enjoy but a shrewder selection would have made for a better show.

Andy Warhol: The Portfolios runs until Sept 16 (020 8693 5254, dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk).

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