Andy Warhol
Rebel Without a Cause (James Dean), from Ads, 1985
Medium: Screenprint in colors on Lenox Museum Board
Dimensions: 38 × 38 in. (96.5 × 96.5 cm)
Edition: 190 + 30 AP
Signature: Signed and numbered in pencil
Printer: Rupert Jasen Smith, New York
Publisher: Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Inc., New York
Series: Ads, 1985
Catalogue Raisonné: Feldman & Schellmann II.355
The broader edition also included 5 printer’s proofs, 5 exhibition proofs, 10 hors commerce impressions, 10 Roman-numeral impressions, 1 bon à tirer, and 30 unique trial proofs.
Created in 1985 as part of Andy Warhol’s celebrated Ads portfolio, Rebel Without a Cause (James Dean) transforms imagery from the Japanese promotional poster for the iconic 1955 film into one of Warhol’s most immediately recognizable meditations on Hollywood celebrity. The Ads portfolio comprises ten screenprints appropriating imagery from advertising and popular culture.
Warhol depicts James Dean in the leather jacket and white T-shirt that helped define his enduring image as the archetypal American rebel. Against the intense red background, Dean’s figure is rendered in black and green while Japanese characters appear prominently along the left side of the composition.
Dean was an especially fitting subject for Warhol, whose career repeatedly explored the relationship between celebrity, mass media, desire, and mortality. Like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley, Dean had transcended his career to become a cultural image—precisely the transformation from person to icon that fascinated Warhol.
