Andy Warhol’s Sunset project, created in 1972, is a collection of screenprints based on several reels of sunset photographs shot in East Hampton, San Francisco, and New York. He also created a film called Sunset, using the same imagery, and it is one of the fifty films that has been preserved by the Museum of Modern Art. Each sunset image contains different colors thus evoking a different sensation based upon the colors. Each print in the Sunset series is unique, using a great variety of colors and depicting various frames from the Sunset film.
Warhol produced the Sunset series in 1972 on smooth-wove paper. This series is an extreme example of the concept of color serialization. The screenprint was produced at an unheard-of 472 unique color variations with the use of only three screens. The Sunset series is considered to be one of Warhol’s more expressive projects he produced in his lifetime. Warhol created 40 portfolios of the Sunset prints with 4 prints in each. The remaining 472 prints were used by famed architects Johnson & Burgee to adorn the rooms of the renovated Hotel Marquette in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The prints were removed in 1981, and Warhol signed, numbered, and stamped them.
Other unique Sunset prints include Sunset (Unique) (Blue/Green/Orange/Yellow), and Sunset (Unique) (Purple/Pink/Yellow).
