Andy Warhol Mick Jagger Portfolio For Sale

Mick Jagger is a portfolio of ten screenprints produced by Warhol in 1975, featuring portraits of the Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger. The collaboration between two countercultural icons of the decade, one in art, and one in music, is a striking one that advanced both of their careers.  

Each portrait depicts Jagger in a different position and a different distance from the viewer, exuding a kinetic energy that befits the star’s stage presence. They are particularly significant works in relation to Warhol’s other portraiture because rather than reappropriating images – as he did with Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Onassis, he took the photographs of Jagger himself and then altered them. This important move away from ‘found’ imagery means that the portraits of Jagger are imbued with a much more palpable sense of his personality. The artist’s use of mixed media – of photograph, drawing and screenprinting, further add to the vibrancy of the work. Perhaps the energetic and faithful nature of this portrayal is owed to the fact the two men shared a real friendship. Warhol and Jagger first met at a party in New York City in 1964, during the band’s first U.S tour. Warhol designed the Rolling Stones’ album cover for Sticky Fingers in 1971, and by the time he painted this series, had known Mick for over ten years.  

Warhol’s Mick Jagger portraits are at once a part of the artist’s portrait collection as well as distinctive. While in most portraits – such as of Marilyn – the artist framed the face and neck, Jagger is featured with a shirtless bust. His body is highlighted, even lifting an armpit where the artist has focussed on his body hair (II.141): this gives a rawness to the image. In doing so, the artist conveys that as much as his female muses, Jagger also was regarded as a sex symbol and figure of male glamour. Warhol mused: ‘Mick Jagger is the rock star with the longest running image. He’s the one all the young white kids copy. That’s why every detail of his appearance is important.’ 

Each portrait was signed by both Warhol and Jagger, emphasising the truly collaborative nature of this work and appealing to fans of two twentieth-century icons.