ANDY WARHOL, LINCOLN CENTER FILM FESTIVAL TICKET (Feldman & Schellmann II.19), 1967

Andy Warhol

Lincoln Center Film Festival Ticket (Feldman & Schellmann II.19), 1967

This dazzling large-scale Warhol Lincoln Center Ticket is a silkscreen published in a limited edition of 500. This classic Warhol work was selected as the cover design of the 1975 book "Images of an Era: The American Poster 1945-75" by Milton Glaser, Dore Ashton and others.
It was commissioned in the mid-Sixties to commemorate the Fifth Anniversary of the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center, that has become most emblematic of the entire program. It is quintessential early Warhol, with characteristic bright neon colors, featuring text, along with the artist's very recognizable flower motif. The Lincoln Center ticket simultaneously reflects Warhol's central preoccupations with commercial culture (the ticket is, par excellence, an object that is bought and sold), as well as his fascination with Hollywood - as the ticket, quite literally, represents an entree into the world of film. Warhol's appropriation of the flower - an otherwise sentimental and decorative motif, transforming it into a symbol of the Pop Art movement, is a hallmark of his early style and innovations. Andy Warhol's vibrant vintage color silkscreen "Lincoln Center Ticket" from the fabulous Sixties is considered one of the more iconic and recognizable Warhol images. It is also one of Warhol's earliest prints. The Vera List Art Project, which commissioned this design, was established in 1962 by philanthropists Vera and Albert List as a way to both support the visual arts and raise funds for Lincoln Center. Artists like Andy Warhol, Will Barnett, Chuck Close, Jim Dine, Helen Frankenthaler, George Condo, Richard Serra, Larry Rivers, Robert Longo, Helen Frankenthaler, Sol LeWitt, and dozens of others others have contributed their unique designs to this program over the decades. During the '60s, Warhol was making numerous films. He was also a big fan of Hollywood, as evidenced by his preoccupation with movie stars like Liz Taylor and Marilyn Monroe. The giant movie ticket of "Lincoln Center Ticket" is also Warhol's homage to fellow Pop provocateur, Claes Oldenburg, famous for appropriating everyday objects and re-imagining them on the grand scale - as Warhol was acutely aware of the works of his contemporaries. Warhol's Lincoln Center ticket has been featured in numerous exhibitions and surveys of prints and multiples of the Sixties....and in recent years, it was even featured in a segment for "Antique's Roadshow."
Publisher: Leo Castelli, New York
Printer: Chiron Press, New York
Catalogue Raisonne: Feldman & Schellman, II.19
Literature: Images of an Era 72 and cover, Modern Poster 255, Modern American Poster 132, Muller-Brockmann 121, Plakat Kunst p. 173, The Poster p. 358, Interationale Plakate 704, Kunstler Plakate p. 107, MoMA 493.1978.
Fine condition; a bright impression

Stamped and dated at the bottom: Andy Warhol/commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts for List Art Poster Program, Lincoln Center, 1967, List Art Foundation, Inc., with Warhol's copyright

Literature: Catalogue Raisonne: Feldman & Schellman, II.19, Images of an Era 72 and cover, Modern Poster 255, Modern American Poster 132, Muller-Brockmann 121, Plakat Kunst p. 173, The Poster p. 358, Interationale Plakate 704, Kunstler Plakate p. 107, MoMA 493.1978.