Details — Click to read
Offset lithograph in colours, circa 1971, on wove paper mounted on card stock, from the limited edition of unknown size, printed by The Curwen Press Ltd., London, published by Tate Gallery publications department, London, 76.2 x 50.8 cm.
The present work was created as an advertising poster for Warhol’s 1971 exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London. The poster’s featured image, Warhol’s ‘Shot Blue Sage Marilyn’, derives from a publicity photograph of Marilyn Monroe by Gene Kornman for the 1953 film ‘Niagara’.
The title refers to a shocking incident in which Dorothy Podber, an East Village performance artist and friend of photographer Billy Name, entered Warhol’s Factory studio and asked Warhol if she could ‘shoot’ the paintings. Believing her intention to be to photograph the works, Warhol obliged. Podber then pulled out a small revolver and shot a single bullet through a stack of four recently finished portraits of Marilyn with the blue sage background. After the event, Warhol included the word ‘Shot’ in his titling of the surviving works in reference to Podber’s shooting – in a way, acknowledging Podber as a collaborator to the work.
