Andy Warhol Love Portfolio (F & S II.310-312)

Love is a portfolio of three screenprints published by Warhol in 1983, a series which depicts two nude lovers embracing. At once tender, sensitive, and sexually charged, each print envisions the lovers in a different position with their bodies haloed in different colours. When viewed in their entirety, one sees the artist’s subtle sense of narrative and temporality in the scene as the female lover moves closest to the male in the final print (312). 

In its sexual nature, Love is at first reminiscent of Sex Parts, a series Warhol based on polaroid images of two people performing sex acts. But Love is arguably more affectionate than explicit, with soft lines and soft colours. Aside from the breasts and buttocks, Warhol has hidden the male couples’ genitals from view, therefore portraying the encounter as one that is intimate and private. The artist’s favourite method of manipulating images – of duplication – is used here to represent the pink and yellow shadows of the bodies. Thus the lover appears to hold onto both the corporeal figure and illusory figure, perhaps conveying the fleeting nature of amorous affairs.