Lot 3423* - A215 Post-War & Contemporary - Thursday, 27. November 2025, 02.00 PM
ANDY WARHOL
(Pittsburgh 1928–1987 New York City)
Patty Raynes and Son. 1985.
Silkscreen and acrylic on canvas.
Signed and dated on the overlap: Andy Warhol 85.
102 × 102 cm.
Provenance:
- Private collection, USA, acquired directly from the artist in 1985.
- US collection, acquired from the previous owner in 2022.
Portraits occupied a central role in Andy Warhol's oeuvre from the early 1960s onwards. Earlier works, such as the iconic depictions of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley or Jackie Kennedy are characterised by serial repetition, pictorial exaggeration and an evocation of icon painting. Warhol turned celebrities into modern saints, so to speak.
In his late work, the artist increasingly focussed on the depiction of private identity, namely in the charged relationship between social status and visibility in the media. ‘Patty Raynes and Son’ from 1985 is an example of this development. The work is one of a series of portraits in which Warhol no longer exclusively depicted global celebrities, but increasingly portrayed members of his social environment - individuals whose social position exerted a symbolic aura, even if they remained outside the pop-cultural canon.
Patty Raynes came from a respected family of American industrialists, daughter of Marvin and Barbara Davis, a fact which inevitably lends the work the character of a status portrait. Warhol, who was always concerned with the relationship between appearance and identity, addresses the portrait here as an expression of social affiliation.
The subject, the depiction of a mother and child, is immediately reminiscent of the archetypal motif of the Madonna and Child, which has dominated Western art for centuries. Warhol adopts this traditional pictorial form but transforms it into a contemporary icon: the sacred content is disrupted by the screen-printing technique, giving the scene a cool, distanced character. The almost square picture plane lends the work a symmetrical calm, while the format creates a subtle closeness between the sitters and the viewer. The flatness and contour-like overlapping of the colours create an ambivalent tension between figuration and abstraction.
The colour scheme possesses a convincing controlled expressiveness. The highly contrasting areas are not only used for their visual arrangement but also reveal a semantic effect. Colour functions here as a carrier of emotional intensity without slipping into sentimentality. The dominant yellow tone permeates the entire image and allows the bright blue of the mother's and child's eyes to stand out uniformly, while Patty Raynes' summery blouse and her son's shirt also come to the fore.
The depiction of a child in close contact with its mother is rarely found in Warhol's work. The sitters appear both as individual beings and as representatives of a social type. Warhol is less interested in psychological insight than in the image itself - the question of how identity is constructed and conveyed in the visual medium. Although the people depicted do not enjoy global celebrity status, the formal treatment follows the principle of heroization: simplification, a reduction to a flat plane and strict frontality lend the scene a solemn presence. The direct gaze of the sitters into the camera, or rather that of the original photographic image, generates an immediate connection to the viewer and endows the work with a compelling visual force.
In his late work, the artist increasingly focussed on the depiction of private identity, namely in the charged relationship between social status and visibility in the media. ‘Patty Raynes and Son’ from 1985 is an example of this development. The work is one of a series of portraits in which Warhol no longer exclusively depicted global celebrities, but increasingly portrayed members of his social environment - individuals whose social position exerted a symbolic aura, even if they remained outside the pop-cultural canon.
Patty Raynes came from a respected family of American industrialists, daughter of Marvin and Barbara Davis, a fact which inevitably lends the work the character of a status portrait. Warhol, who was always concerned with the relationship between appearance and identity, addresses the portrait here as an expression of social affiliation.
The subject, the depiction of a mother and child, is immediately reminiscent of the archetypal motif of the Madonna and Child, which has dominated Western art for centuries. Warhol adopts this traditional pictorial form but transforms it into a contemporary icon: the sacred content is disrupted by the screen-printing technique, giving the scene a cool, distanced character. The almost square picture plane lends the work a symmetrical calm, while the format creates a subtle closeness between the sitters and the viewer. The flatness and contour-like overlapping of the colours create an ambivalent tension between figuration and abstraction.
The colour scheme possesses a convincing controlled expressiveness. The highly contrasting areas are not only used for their visual arrangement but also reveal a semantic effect. Colour functions here as a carrier of emotional intensity without slipping into sentimentality. The dominant yellow tone permeates the entire image and allows the bright blue of the mother's and child's eyes to stand out uniformly, while Patty Raynes' summery blouse and her son's shirt also come to the fore.
The depiction of a child in close contact with its mother is rarely found in Warhol's work. The sitters appear both as individual beings and as representatives of a social type. Warhol is less interested in psychological insight than in the image itself - the question of how identity is constructed and conveyed in the visual medium. Although the people depicted do not enjoy global celebrity status, the formal treatment follows the principle of heroization: simplification, a reduction to a flat plane and strict frontality lend the scene a solemn presence. The direct gaze of the sitters into the camera, or rather that of the original photographic image, generates an immediate connection to the viewer and endows the work with a compelling visual force.
CHF 180 000 / 240 000 | (€ 185 570 / 247 420)
Sold for CHF 206 250 (including buyer's premium)