Andy Warhol - Electric Chair F.S. II 79 jpg
The electric chair 79 screen print framed
Andy Warhol Electric chair 79
Andy Warhol standing in front of his Electric Chairs screen prints.

Electric Chair 79

Catalog Title: Electric Chair (FS II.79)
Year: 1971
Size: 35 ½” x 48”
Medium: Screenprint on Paper
Edition: Edition of 250 signed and dated '71 in ball-point pen and numbered with a rubber stamp on verso; some signed in pencil. There are 50 AP numbered in Roman numerals, signed and dated in ball-point pen on verso and stamped AP and numbered with a rubber stamp on verso.
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Electric Chair 79 by Andy Warhol is a screenprint from the artist’s Electric Chair portfolio from 1971. The complete portfolio contains ten images of one photograph which shows the death chamber inside New York’s Sing Sing Prison. Warhol cloaked each image in different colors, evoking a variety of moods from one haunting image. Notably, the Electric Chair series from 1971 ranks under Warhol’s top 10 most valuable portfolios ever sold.

Electric Chair 79 originated with Warhol’s Death and Disaster series from the early 1960s, which commented on society’s relationship with death and violence. He created his first Electric Chair paintings from 1964-1965, while working on the collection. Like many of his other works, Warhol used repetition to relay his ideas to the public. Embodying the media’s constant syndication of violent images, many of the Death and Disaster works present the same images printed in a variety of color combinations. The artist once explained, “When you see a gruesome picture over and over again, it doesn’t really have any effect.”

Warhol’s Death and Disaster series includes some of his most controversial works, due to the gruesome subject matter. He painted the first electric chairs during the peak of the death penalty debate, conjuring even more attention. In 1963, the New York Sing Sing penitentiary conducted what would become its final two executions by electrocution. By creating this series, Warhol forced his viewers to confront a grim reality in America. Electric Chair 79 is one of the more washed-out screenprints in the series. In the print, moody blue and burgundy tones overwhelm and abstract the chair, leaving only a faint impression of the instrument of death. Electric Chair 81 exemplifies an alternate style, with brushstrokes and bright colors.

The Death and Disaster series is much different from Warhol’s other works. Electric Chair 79 is one of many images that express Warhol’s solemn meditation on Death. To create the collection, he appropriated shocking images from newspapers and other media, turning them into damning works of art. Specifically, the image for Electric Chair 79 came from a 1953 press release. The news story reported the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenburg, who were sentenced to death for espionage during the cold war. They were both executed by the electric chair at Sing Sing. Other macabre images from Death and Disaster include Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) and Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I), which are both included in Warhol’s top 10 most valuable paintings of all time.

In a 1963 interview, Warhol explained why he chose to create such bleak images. “I guess it was the big plane crash picture, the front page of the newspaper: 129 dies” he recalled. “I was also painting the Marilyns, I realized that everything I was doing must have been death. It was Christmas or Labor Day–a holiday–and every time you turned on the radio they said something like ‘4 million are going to die.’ That started it.”

Electric Chair 79 is ultimately a manifestation of one of Warhol’s larger ideas. He created this series to comment on society’s desensitization to violence and tragedy, mainly as a result of suffering constant graphic images from the media. Our  general numbness to these topics intrigued Warhol, who felt fascinated by the way we all just accept death and disaster as casual occurrences. The form of Warhol’s artwork brilliantly parallels its meaning and inspiration; the Electric Chairs and “Death Paintings” all embody the media’s hypnosis, flashing violent images on a screen again and again until meaning becomes lost completely. 

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