Andy Warhol Jacqueline Kennedy II (Jackie II) For Sale

Jacqueline Kennedy is the second in a three-part series of prints executed by the artist in 1964 of America’s first lady. Having obsessively collected from newspapers after the death of President J.F Kennedy, this portrait of Jacqueline is a striking personification of grief in the public eye.  

Deeply entrenched in the American, and indeed the modern, psyche, the assassination of John F Kennedy triggered a media onslaught of epic proportions. Unsettled and unnerved by this inundation, Warhol said ‘What bothered me was the way television and radio were programming everybody to feel so sad. It seemed like no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t get away from the thing.’ 

 In the present print Jacqueline appears contemplative in profile, looking outward rather than meeting the gaze of the viewer. As with many of Warhol’s serialised images, Jacqueline is doubled, conveying brilliantly the ease with which her image was reproduced in the mass media at the time.