Warhol created this Wayne Gretzky 306 Trial Proof, a print of hockey’s “The Great One” in 1984 to help draw attention to the Canadian art market. Wayne Gretzky was Canada’s biggest celebrities in the early eighties and is still considered by many as the greatest player of the game. Though Andy Warhol was not a big hockey fan, he said of Gretzky “He’s more than a hockey player, he’s an entertainer” (Warhol in an interview with Matthew Flamm for CBC Radio News, January 1983), which plays a part in Warhol’s choice of subject, due to his deep fascination with fame of any kind.
Wayne Gretzky 306 Trial Proof by Andy Warhol as Part of His Larger Body of Work
Warhol is widely credited as one of the most significant artists of the 20th century. After studying design at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Warhol moved to New York in 1949 to pursue a career as a commercial artist. Though successful, Warhol wanted to be an independent painter. In the early 1960s he began to create paintings based on advertising imagery. He established his own studio and developed his signature style, employing commercial silkscreening techniques to create mass-produced images. With his multiple images of soup cans, soda bottles, dollar bills and celebrities, Warhol revealed the beauty within mass culture and redefined the art world.
