Andy Warhol (American, 1928–1987)
Jane Fonda, 1982
Screenprint in colors on Lenox Museum Board
39½ × 31½ in. (100.3 × 80 cm)
Printer’s Proof PP 2/3, aside from the edition of 100
Signed and numbered in pencil lower left
Printed by Rupert Jasen Smith, New York
Published by Friends of Tom Hayden, Santa Monica, California
Feldman & Schellmann II.268
Framed
Price: on request
Created in 1982, Andy Warhol’s Jane Fonda transforms one of the most recognizable figures of American film and culture into a quintessential Pop portrait. Set against a saturated blue background, Fonda’s features are reduced to Warhol’s unmistakable vocabulary of bold color and graphic line: luminous skin, vivid blue eyes, brilliant red lips, and dark hair articulated with flashes of red and blue.
The work was printed by Rupert Jasen Smith, Warhol’s longtime master printer, and published by Friends of Tom Hayden in Santa Monica as a fundraising edition supporting Hayden’s campaign for the California State Assembly. It therefore occupies an interesting position within Warhol’s portraiture, bringing together celebrity, popular culture and the political activism for which Fonda was equally well known.
This particular impression is especially scarce. It is designated PP 2/3, one of only three Printer’s Proofs aside from the regular edition of 100, 25 Artist’s Proofs and 25 Trial Proofs. The impression is signed by Warhol and numbered PP 2/3 in pencil at the lower left.
At nearly 40 inches in height, Jane Fonda has substantial visual presence while retaining the intimacy of a portrait. The intense blue ground and restrained palette make this one of Warhol’s particularly elegant celebrity images of the early 1980s.
Catalogue Raisonné: Feldman & Schellmann, Andy Warhol Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné 1962–1987, II.268.
