Warhol from the Sonnabend Collection

Renowned gallerist and dedicated art collector, Ileana Sonnabend was an early and fervent supporter of Warhol and presented three important exhibitions of his work at her Paris gallery, where she showed the series Death and Disasters (1964), Flowers (1965) and Thirteen Most Wanted Men (1967). During this time she assembled a private collection of seminal works, acquired directly from Warhol's studio at the time of their making. The book covers Warhol's career, from his earliest paintings of Campbell's soup cans to his later portraits of Mao Tse-tung. Other major series represented include Death and Disaster, Liz, Marilyn, Jackie, Thirteen Most Wanted Men, Brillo Boxes, Flowers and Hammer & Sickle: potent images confronting power, money, and mortality that have become embedded in American visual culture. The book traces Warhol's transition from making hand-painted works to his full adoption of the silkscreen technique in 1962, a move that realized his seamless integration of high art and mass culture. The book is presented in collaboration with the Estate of Ileana Sonnabend, Nina Sundell and Antonio Homem. This fully illustrated book includes essays by Picasso scholar John Richardson (who delivered the eulogy at Warhol's funeral) and Brenda Richardson, a leading Warhol scholar who was a close friend of Ileana Sonnabend. The latter essay gives an insightful portrait of the highly regarded dealer and her relationship with Warhol, illuminated by previously unpublished private letters. Included in the book are facsimile reproductions of the exhibition catalogues published by Galerie Ileana Sonnabend from 1964, 1965 and 1967.