(Pittsburgh 1928–1987 New York)
Marie-Louise Jeanneret, 1974, signed and dated on the reverse with the stamp of the Andy Warhol Authentication Board, Inc., acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas, 102 x 102 cm

This work is registered in the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board, Inc., New York and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity

Provenance:
Frederick W. Hughes Collection
Jane B. Holzer Collection, New York
European Private Collection

Literature:
George Frei and Neil printz, Eds., The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné: paintings and Sculptures, vol. III, no. 2790 with ill.

Portraits are one of the hallmarks of Andy Warhol's art, and were his main source of income, especially at the beginning of his career. He immortalised famous people such as collectors, singers, royalty, and other figures from the world of entertainment and modern culture throughout his career.

The King of Pop Art said: 'When I did my self-portrait, I avoided all the pimples because that's what you should always do. Pimples are a temporary condition and have nothing to do with your real appearance. Always omit flaws: they are not part of the beautiful image you want to achieve'. Here, the artist gives us an insight into some of the guidelines he used to follow when creating his self-portraits.
Warhol’s famous 1974 work 'Portrait of Marie-Louise Jeanneret' immortalises the granddaughter of the famous Swiss architect Le Corbusier.

Marie-Louise Jeanneret was a renowned art dealer who had set up an International Centre for Artistic Experimentation in Boissano together with the great art dealer Simon Spieper. Big names including Warhol visited this place of great artistic fervour.
"Warhol probably spent no more than a week in Boissano, but during that time he photographed the following visitors for their portraits: the collectors; Dr Luigi Accame, Giuliano Gori, Carla Pizzera, and Simon Spieper; a young ballerina, Gabriella Cohen; and Jeanneret herself. Spieper posed with his two Borzoi dogs, Taigan and Vedma. Three Turin-based collectors, passionate about the writings of the French novelist Marcel Proust, commissioned four portraits of the writer in lieu of their own (cat. nos. 2795-2798). Warhol probably painted all sixteen portraits during August and September, before moving studios from 33 Union Square West to 860 Broadway. Although he painted four canvases of Jeanneret (cat. nos. 2787-2790), she did not acquire any of her portraits. In 1976, Jeanneret organised a Warhol exhibition in Boissano that included most of the portraits commissioned in 1974."
Warhol thus revived the genre of commissioned portraiture that had been thought dead for almost fifty years.

It is inappropriate to determine serialisation to be this great genius of Pop Art’s sole means of artistic expression; it is much more than that. As Marcello Levi writes in the catalogue of the above-mentioned exhibition held at the Marie - Louise Jeanneret International Centre for Artistic Experimentation: ‘Those who have seen Warhol overcome his great shyness to approach his patrons, discarding some, verifying others, to then study them in person with trepidation; and then the long days of suffering in the execution of the paintings, far removed from the arrogant lethargy of pop divas... those who have seen all this cannot help but disdainfully dismiss the insinuations of the 'worldly' critics who have rambled on about Warhol chasing money to finance his films. Let us just say that this recent series of portraits, with never more than four variants per subject, has very high qualitative tension'.