Mammy 262 by Andy Warhol is one of ten screenprints from the Myths portfolio, created in 1981. The work shows the outline of a woman’s face with turquoise eyes, ruby lips, and golden hoop earrings. She wears a vivid red headscarf that glows against the dark background. Warhol uses muted gestural lines to suggest her form, allowing the red, green, and gold accents to pop. The surface sparkles with diamond dust, a material Warhol often used to heighten drama and allure. His signature appears in the bottom right corner.
The Myths Portfolio
The Myths portfolio captures Warhol’s fascination with fame and cultural archetypes. Unlike his portraits of celebrities, like Marilyn Monroe, Mick Jagger, or consumer goods like Campbell’s soup, these works move into the realm of fiction and legend. The ten prints draw from Hollywood films, Disney cartoons, folklore, and literature. Together, they portray characters who helped shape the American popular imagination.
In Mammy 262, Warhol invited Sylvia Williams, former director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, to sit for the role. This followed his broader practice in the Myths series, where he often asked friends, fellow artists, and lesser-known cultural figures to embody archetypes—as he did with Uncle Sam 259 and others. Williams embodies the figure with warmth and poise, her smile contrasting with the stark black backdrop. While other works in the portfolio, such as Santa Claus and The Witch, glow with bright backgrounds, Mammy recedes into shadow. This choice underscores both her symbolic power and her uneasy place in American memory.
Mammy 262 in Warhol’s Larger Body of Work
The “Mammy” figure is not tied to one source but to a long-standing cultural archetype: the maternal Black caregiver. She appears in works ranging from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) to the 1939 film Gone With the Wind. In Warhol’s hands, Mammy represents both comfort and controversy. She reflects outdated stereotypes even as she acknowledges the central role of Black women in American cultural history.
Each image in the Myths portfolio mirrors a facet of Warhol himself. Though he never explained why he chose Mammy, he possessed an unerring sense of the zeitgeist of his time and understood the importance of her role. He recognized her influence as both a familiar character and a contested one. By including her, Warhol highlighted how popular culture embraces figures who are both celebrated and problematic. Mammy 262 remains one of the most debated works in this collection—an emblem of Pop Art’s power to expose the myths that shape collective memory.
Photo credit:
- “Andy Warhol shooting Mammy.” Photograph by Barbara J. Goldner, 1981. Courtesy of St. Lawrence University.
- “Andy Warhol at R. Feldman Gallery with Myths, 1981,” Robert Levin, 2015.
