| Andy Warhol was both a friend and mentor to Jamie Wyeth, the acclaimed realist painter and third generation artist of the Wyeth clan. A decade later, in the 80s, he was also a friend to the street-wise wizard of language and image, Jean-Michel Basquiat. For this exhibition, which was organized by the Brandywine River Museum, some of the artwork of these three collaborators was amassed to form a visual diary recounting a special era in art history—a time when the master of pop, who galvanized an entire aesthetic as well as an approach to life and art, influenced and effected the careers of the two younger artists, but in very different ways. |  |
Factory Work: Warhol, Wyeth, Basquiat – D. Dominick Lombardi
Andy Warhol was both a friend and mentor to Jamie Wyeth, the acclaimed realist painter and third generation artist of the Wyeth clan. A decade later, in the 80s, he was also a friend to the street-wise wizard of language and image, Jean-Michel Basquiat.
For this exhibition, which was organized by the Brandywine River Museum, some of the artwork of these three collaborators was amassed to form a visual diary recounting a special era in art history—a time when the master of pop, who galvanized an entire aesthetic as well as an approach to life and art, influenced and effected the careers of the two younger artists, but in very different ways.
In the works of Wyeth, during his Warhol years, we see an increase in the starkness of his forms, a sort of frizzy tension in the lines and gestures and an emphasis on topical subject matter. There is also an explosiveness to his compositions during this period. In the art of Basquiat, we see an increase in the concept of the self as art, the perfecting of an aesthetic package as well as an overall commoditization of the art objects he created.
And, where Wyeth and Warhol created separate works, Basquiat and Warhol completed actual collaborations—painting, together, on the same surfaces and resulting in works that were surprisingly successful and powerful.
If all this were not enough reason to see the show, there are many other objects and props on display here, such as stuffed animals collected by Warhol, which appear in the paintings and drawings at hand, and the wonderful photographs of the artists together. There is a replica of the train set that Warhol and Wyeth toyed with from time to time, the famous faux boxing poster with Basquiat and Warhol standing side by side (set to “do battle” before the opening of their shows at Tony Shafrazi and Bruno Bischofberger in 1985) as well as the three-paneled Gravestone that Basquiat created in memory of Warhol’s passing.
There are also works here that one might not have ever seen before, like Warhol’s negative-toned silkscreen portrait of Basquiat in a jockstrap, titled Jean-Michel Basquiat, a double portrait of a moose head or the man himself, Warhol, depicted by Wyeth, and titled Lunch at the Factory.
It is also a pleasure to see the two beautiful portraits in pencil that Warhol created of Wyeth in 1976 as well as the amazingly atmospheric and luminous The Wind by Wyeth, a work inspired by the Pre-Raphaelite painting Wyeth had first seen decades earlier in the home of Warhol, and of the same title, created by the British painter David Forrester Wilson.
Warhol and Wyeth also shared an affinity for animals, often depicting them side-by-side, but at the same eye level, which made none taller than any other, none more important. In terms of Warhol and Basquiat, even though the pair had far less time together, the two managed to create some pivotal works. In one work in particular, from 1982, Warhol brought back a technique he had used five years earlier, whereby studio assistants urinated on Basquiat’s portrait to get the metallic paint to oxidize it, thus forcing the color to change and modulate.
So there you have it. A piece of history that began in the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, PA, that moved here, to the McNay Museum in San Antonio. After leaving this spot, it’s off to the Farnsworth Art Museum, in Rockland, Maine. See it if you can.
