Andy WARHOL (1928-1987)
Sunset
1972
Unique screenprint on smooth wove paper.
34 x 34 in. (86.4 x 86.4 cm.)
(with frame: 42 x 42 x 1.5 in.)
Signed and dated in pencil “Andy Warhol © 1972”,
numbered /470 (from the total edition of 632 unique impressions),
with the “HOTEL MARQUETTE PRINTS” inkstamp on the reverse.
Printer: Salvatore Silkscreen Co., Inc., New York
Publisher: David Whitney, New York
Certificate: a copy of a letter from Lesch Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota enclosing a copy of a letter of authenticity from the Andy Warhol Studio, New York, NY, dated March 16, 1981.
Provenance: – Lesch Gallery, Minneapolis – Private collection, USA
Literature: “Andy Warhol Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné 1962-1987,” edited by Frayda Feldman and Jörg Schellmann, 3rd ed. revised and expanded by Freyda Feldman and Claudia Defendi, 1997, II.85-88 and IIA.85-88, p.77 and 161 (other impressions ill.).
Andy Warhol’s Sunset series shares a direct historical, conceptual, and aesthetic connection with Mark Rothko’s Color Field paintings. The Sunset series originated in 1964 when prominent art patrons John and Dominique de Menil commissioned Warhol to create a film about sunsets, with spiritual significance. The original plan was to project this footage inside their newly envisioned “Rothko Chapel” in Houston, Texas, creating a dialogue between Warhol’s underground cinema and Rothko’s spiritual abstractions. Warhol filmed numerous sunsets across America, ultimately focusing on a 33-minute, slow, static shot of the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean in California.
While the chapel film installation was never realized, Warhol repurposed the imagery in 1972 to create 632 unique screenprints, using his film stills as the core source material and transforming a mechanical printing process into a poetic and spiritual study of natural light variation. He achieved this by using only three screens—one for the background bands of color, one for the sun, and one for a single-color dot pattern—but constantly varied the ink colors and the alignment of the screens. The project was commissioned by architects Johnson & Burgee for the rooms of the newly built Hotel Marquette in Minneapolis. 472 prints were installed in the Hotel Marquette (stamped “Hotel Marquette Prints” on the back) and 160 were reserved for standard portfolios. In 1981, upon removal from the hotel, the 472 prints were signed, numbered 1/470 – 470/470, and dated in pencil on verso, and two were marked “HC”; they were stamped in black on verso “Hotel Marquette Prints.”
With his Sunset series, Warhol stepped away from his usual industrial Pop subjects (like Campbell’s Soup cans) to deconstruct a traditional art motif. He used the same film stills but altered the ink combinations for each individual print. By flattening the sun into a geometric semicircle and dividing the horizon into distinct bands of color, Warhol closely mimicked Rothko’s Color Field paintings.