Andy Warhol—
From A to B and
Back Again
Nov 12, 2018–Mar 31, 2019
The Last Supper
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Among his final paintings, Camouflage Last Supper is perhaps one of the most personal works of Warhol’s career. The painting combines an enlarged photograph of a print of Leonardo’s mural with a standard camouflage pattern from a swatch of fabric.
Camouflage Last Supper, 1986
Andy Warhol, Camouflage Last Supper, 1986. Acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas, 6 ft. 8 in. × 25 ft. 5 in. (2.03 × 7.75 m). Private collection. © 2018 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
The mediated imagery creates tensions—between surface and depth, original and copy, abstraction and figuration. Made in the early years of the ongoing AIDS crisis, the painting offers a meditation on militancy, spiritual sacrifice, and mourning, perhaps expressing the complexities of Warhol’s experience as both a gay man and a Byzantine Catholic, whose continued religious practice was not fully revealed until after his death in 1987.
“Nobody really looks at anything; it's too hard. I think someone should see my paintings in person before he says they're vacuous.”
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Leonardo Da Vinci "Prime Idee Per l'Ultima Cena" Exhibition Press Preview at Cenacolo Vinciano Museum, Milan, June 18, 2018 in Milan. Photograph by Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images.
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Christopher Makos, Andy With Priests, Milan, 1987. © Christopher Makos
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On view in the exhibition:
Andy Warhol, Thirty Are Better than One, 1963. Silkscreen ink on linen, 110 x 94 1/2 in. (279.4 x 240 cm). The Brant Foundation, Greenwich, CT. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
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Hear Curator Donna De Salvo on one of Warhol’s final paintings
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Hear Curator Donna De Salvo on one of Warhol’s final paintings
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related section 19
Related Artworks
From the Collection