Live Auction 2766Andy Warhol at Christie's Sold to Benefit the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
ANDY WARHOL
Lot 517

ANDY WARHOL

Merce Cunningham I

Closed12 November 2012

Price Realised

USD 16,250

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ANDY WARHOL
Merce Cunningham I
screenprint in black, 1974, on wove paper, a trial proof, unique on this paper (the edition was 100 plus 30 artist's proofs), with the 'The Estate of Andy Warhol' and 'Authorized by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts' inkstamps on the reverse, the full sheet, generally in very good condition, framed
Sheet: 30 1/8 x 25¼ in. (968 x 641 mm.)

Specialist note

Merce Cunningham never posed in person for Warhol. To create his portrait of Cunningham, Warhol worked from fashion photographer Richard Rutledge's contact sheets. These photographs showed Cunningham performing his dance Antic Meet from 1958. In these photographs, Cunningham is dressed in a costume designed by Robert Rauschenberg and performs his iconographic combinations of bodily gesture and classical dance. Warhol would later collaborate with Cunningham, lending his stage design to the seminal performance Rainforest in 1968.