Elvis

1963　Silkscreen and spray-paint on canvas
208.0cm x 292.3cm

Andy WARHOL

1928 - 1987, USA

Pop Art focused on the popular culture and mass consumption that flourished in the United States after World War II. Andy Warhol became a standard bearer of the Pop movement, producing paintings with endlessly repeated images of mass-produced merchandise and celebrities.
The figure holding a gun in this work is Elvis Presley, then one of the most famous singers and actors in the United States. This photographic image was an advertising still for the movie Flaming Star (1960). While multiple versions of the Elvis series are known to exist, this work was never seen publicly in Warhol’s lifetime. It hung on the wall of his studio, where the Fukuoka Art Museum purchased it directly.
The double image of Elvis against a silver-white background features blurred and uneven ink. The repetition informs us that Elvis is nothing more than an image distributed through the media of television and movies. Warhol clearly and cynically conveys a vision of capitalist society in which the mass production and distribution of images constitute “fame.”