Andy Warhol Hans Christian Andersen Portfolio (F & S II.394-397) For Sale

Hans Christian Anderson is a portfolio of four screenprints executed by the artist in 1987. This is one portfolio of two. Produced in the artist’s final year, Warhol at this stage turned to a repertoire of nostalgic imagery from his childhood. The source material for this whimsical series comes from Anderson’s own cutout illustrations and thus combines the imaginations of the Danish nineteenth-century writer and the father of Pop art. 

What is immediately striking about Warhol’s Hans Christian Anderson portfolio is its formal reimagining: Anderson’s paper-cutting method was known for being intricate, small in size and a manual process. He believed in the poetic power of the paper and scissors, saying that ‘Paper cutting is the prelude to writing.’ In contrast, Warhol’s screenprinting process can be seen as mechanical and mass-produced. He has blown up the papercuts, rendering them giant-size. Among the paper-cuts are Two Women by a Palm Tree with a Ballerina on Top of It, Clown with a tablet on his head, Miller with two Ole Lukojes. The imagines are playful and primitive in style. 

Hans Christian Anderson himself appears in one of the four screenprints (394), wherein his painterly portrait appears alongside a sketched one, a testament to the writer’s career as an illustrator in addition to his storytelling abilities.