Andy Warhol Vesuvius (F & S II.365) For Sale

Vesuvius is a single screenprint executed in 1985 of the Italian Volcano situated on the Gulf of Naples. Dramatic, explosive and chaotic, this image is a reminder of Warhol’s strong capacity for landscapes and the natural world despite being known primarily as a portrait painter. The work was published by the Fondazione Amelio in Naples, and forms a corpus of Neapolitan-inspired works for an exhibition at the Museo di Capodimonte.  

In keeping with the volcano’s many eruptions, Warhol’s Vesuvius glows a deep red. Further red and black lines traverse the landscape, billowing smoke. The fear and threat to life from the volcano’s eruption is arguably the emotional pull for the artist, who had depicted electric chairs and car crashes in his morbid Death and Disaster series. For Warhol, one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world also contained the same essence of impending doom: ‘I realised that everything I was doing must have been death.’