Andy Warhol Shadows Portfolio I (F & S II.204 - 209) For Sale

Shadows is a portfolio of six screenprints published by Warhol in 1979. Among the most abstract and rare prints in Warhol’s career, each print uniquely colourises a different shadow. Adding to their attraction, each paper is covered with diamond dust. 

Shadows stands out amongst Warhol’s works for being entirely non-figurative. Departing from popular culture and consumerism, here the artist strips back what was at the heart of his images: light and dark. A keen photographer, Warhol almost always photographed the subjects of his silk screens, arranging them to create shadows at different angles before printing them.  

Appearing in an array of red to silver, the viewer is able to focus on the evocation of feeling rather than contemplation of an object or person. As popularised by abstract artist Mark Rothko, juxtapositions of ‘colour fields’ elicit emotional responses in the viewer. Thus the works are a truly special example of Warhol at his most sensitive and experimental. 

It is also pertinent to consider the abstract idea of ‘shadows’ and what they represent. Metaphorically, things that lie in the ‘shadows’ can be the darker aspects of one’s personality, or what is repressed, as in Jungian psychology. Warhol in fact produced a self-portrait in his famous 1981 Myth Series called ‘The Shadow’, in which his shadow looms over the print.