Andy Warhol (American, 1928–1987)
Lobster, circa 1982
Graphite on HMP paper
Sheet: 31 7/8 × 23 3/4 in. (80.9 × 60.3 cm)
Framed: 41 1/2 × 33 1/2 × 1 3/8 in. (105.5 × 85 × 3.4 cm)
Unique work
Accompanied by a certificate from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, reference TOP 18.003.
Price: on request
About the Work
Executed circa 1982, Lobster is a large-scale original graphite drawing by Andy Warhol that transforms an unexpected and playful subject into an image of remarkable graphic presence.
The lobster is presented frontally, its claws raised dramatically above its body and its long antennae extending toward the upper corners of the sheet. Warhol strips the animal down to a remarkably economical network of graphite contours, allowing the expansive areas of untouched paper to become an integral part of the composition. The result is at once elegant, humorous and unmistakably Pop.
The drawing belongs to an important period in Warhol’s career when he was increasingly revisiting drawing as an independent medium. While his screenprints and paintings depended upon mechanical reproduction, photography and repetition, drawings such as Lobster reveal the immediacy of Warhol’s hand. The seemingly effortless line is direct and economical, reducing the subject to the visual information necessary to make it instantly recognizable.
The choice of a lobster is particularly suited to Warhol’s sensibility. Throughout his career, Warhol repeatedly elevated familiar objects—from Campbell’s soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles to shoes, flowers and dollar signs—into subjects worthy of fine art. Here, the lobster becomes something similarly theatrical: simultaneously a recognizable object, a luxury commodity, a still-life subject and a wonderfully eccentric Pop icon.
At nearly 32 inches high, the sheet is substantial for a Warhol drawing. The lobster occupies almost the entire composition, giving what is fundamentally a delicate graphite work surprising wall power. Its restrained monochromatic palette also makes it particularly effective in a contemporary interior.
The work is accompanied by an Andy Warhol Foundation certificate, TOP 18.003, providing important documentation for this unique work on paper.
A wonderfully witty and visually distinctive example of Warhol’s late drawing practice, Lobster combines an immediately engaging subject with unusually generous scale, elegant draftsmanship and the unmistakable visual language of one of the defining artists of the 20th century.
