Ethel Scull 36 Times | |
---|---|
Artist | Andy Warhol |
Year | 1963 |
Type | Acrylic paint and silk screen ink on canvas |
Dimensions | 80 by 144 inches (200 cm × 370 cm) |
Location | Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, U.S. |
Ethel Scull 36 Times is a 1963 painting by American artist Andy Warhol. It was Warhol's first commissioned work. [1] [2] [3] The work consists of four rows of nine equal columns, [4] depicting Ethel Redner Scull, a well-known collector of modern art. [5] The artwork is jointly owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. [1]
Ethel Scull (née Redner) was born in The Bronx, New York City in 1921. Her father was a wealthy taxi company owner. [5]
Robert Scull was born in New York City to Russian immigrant parents who had anglicized their family name from Sokolnikoff. [6] His childhood was spent in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. His interest in modern art began when he visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a ten-year-old boy. [7]
Ethel Redner met Robert Scull, who was then a freelance illustrator, when she was studying at Parsons School of Design. They married in 1944. [5] When Ethel's father retired, he distributed shares of his business among his three sons-in-law. Robert Scull was one of the beneficiaries, and built up a prosperous business. [5]
Robert Scull bought every work in Jasper Johns' first exhibition. [1] Ethel Scull 36 Times was Robert Scull's present to Ethel Scull on her 42nd birthday. [1] Once questioned by an interviewer regarding accusations that he and his wife bought art for investment and for social climbing, Robert Scull replied: "It's all true. I'd rather use art to climb than anything else." [8]
In early 1963 Robert Scull asked Warhol to paint a portrait of his wife after the style of the Marilyn Diptych and Warhol's other depictions of Marilyn Monroe. [3] [9] At the time, this was at the height of the Sculls' fame. [10] Warhol took Ethel Scull to a Times Square photo booth and prompted her to take 300 black and white photographs of herself. Warhol told her jokes in an effort to make her photographs more candid. [9] One hand-colored photo-strip from the session is in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum. [11]
It has been reported that Warhol made around 1,000 portraits, many of them commissioned. [3] In 1974 he accepted a commission from Gunther Sachs to paint Sachs' then wife Brigitte Bardot, and then also produced a portrait of Sachs himself. [3] Other commissioned works include a 1985 portrait of Lana Turner paid for by the actress herself. [3]
Ethel Scull 36 Times was Warhol's first commissioned portrait and the starting point in his business in making portraits at the request of wealthy celebrities. [1] [3]
Warhol's depictions of people were often created from photographs he found in the print media. [7] A movie poster was used for the Marilyn Diptych. [9] Ethel Scull 36 Times was the first time Warhol created a photo-based work using images he had created. [7]
After divorcing his wife, Robert Scull claimed ownership of the painting. Ethel Scull claimed the art work was a gift given to her by her then husband, and was her possession. The artwork is now currently shared between the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. [1]
Andy Warhol was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol is considered one of the most important artists of the 20th century. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, photography, and filmmaking. Some of his best-known works include the silkscreen paintings Campbell's Soup Cans (1962) and Marilyn Diptych (1962), the experimental film Chelsea Girls (1966), and the multimedia events known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966–67).
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Events from the year 1962 in art.
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Events from the year 1964 in art.
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Robert Scull was an American art collector, best known for his "world-famous collection of Pop and Minimal art". Born in New York to Russian immigrant parents, Scull dropped out of high school and had various jobs until his wife inherited a share of a taxi business. When this thrived, the couple started buying abstract art and later pop art.
Ethel Redner Scull was an American art collector. Well known for her collection of pop and minimal art that she assembled with her husband, Robert Scull.
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