Life Savers 353 by Andy Warhol is a screenprint from the artist’s Ads series, published in 1985. The portfolio comprises ten popular advertisements from the 1950s through the 1980s, each one given the pop art treatment by Warhol and his master printer Rupert Jasen Smith. The portfolio was commissioned and published by Ronald Feldman of Feldman Fine Arts, who worked with Warhol prolifically in the 1980s.
“Please do not lick this page!” Andy Warhol knew that Life Savers were delicious, but he also knew that with his artistic hand, he could somehow make them look even more appetizing in Life Savers 353. On a creamy, Baker-Miller Pink background, 18 Life Savers float, ready for the tasting. With a frolicsome handful of color, Warhol begs the viewer to buy a pack of the hard candies, nearly neon in hue and illustrated with delightfully chaotic gestural lines. Taking us back in time with an old-fashioned poster feel, Warhol brings alive the skills he developed as a commercial illustrator in the 1950s, and brings back one more thing from the decade: prices. Warhol advertises the Life Savers pack as “still only 5¢!”, the cost of the candy until 1969, 16 years prior to the creation of his Life Savers print. It’s not just Life Savers that Warhol pays tribute to in this bright screenprint– it’s his love of sugar. In his book, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, the artist even remarked his favorite Life Saver was the peppermint flavor, which he looked forward to every time he had to fly. No doubt Life Savers 353 is a specimen of sweet, sweet nostalgia that really puts the POP in Pop Art.
More than just a taste of Warhol’s creativity and vibrant mind, the Life Savers print is just one example of 10 screenprints in his Ads portfolio that make up the most memorable visual beacons of American commercial culture throughout the latter half of the 20th century. Putting his Warholian panache into play, the pop artist infused the appropriated imagery with an extra dose of glamour as a commentary on advertising media’s role in the contemporary hyper-fixation on consumption. In addition to Life Savers 353, Ads features Paramount, Mobil, Apple, Van Heusen (Ronald Reagan), Blackgama (Judy Garland), The New Spirit (Donald Duck), Chanel, Rebel Without a Cause, and Volkswagen.
Vintage Life Saver magazine advertisement, 1950s. Courtesy of Phillips.
