Andy Warhol Grace Kelly (F & S II.305) For Sale

Grace Kelly is a screenprint published by the Institute of Contempary Art (PA) in 1984 of the actress and Princess of Monaco. Lesser known but no less inferior in beauty to Warhol’s other portraits of stars such as the ubiquitous Marilyn Monroe, Warhol’s Grace Kelly is classic, elegant and timeless, paying a flattering tribute to the Kelly’s reputation not just as an actress but as a member of the aristocracy. 

Based on a still from Kelly’s first film, Fourteen Hours, Warhol envisions the star against a empty light blue background, with single-colour backgrounds being a feature of nearly all Warhol’s large-scale portraits. The extreme close-up of Kelly’s face commands the picture and her chin gently extends beyond the screenprint: Warhol has kept her face white-grey, enhancing her pale beauty and fine features. Warhol adds colour accents and illustrative lines to Grace’s features, however they are distinctly delicate and precise. It is the positioning of the face, and the fine lines, that distinguish Grace Kelly from Marilyn Monroe (1967), whose portrait appears much more dramatic in composition. The garish colours of the latter can be seen to mirror Marilyn’s crass objectification – meanwhile Grace Kelly was afforded an elevation in image when she became a part of the Monoco Principality, halting her career to marry Prince Rainier III. Warhol’s portrait was executed with the blessing of the Kelly family and in collaboration with her charity, the Princess Grace Foundation.