Shadows V

A suite of two unique screenprints.

Warhol’s body of Shadows works were created during 1978 and 1979, consisting of 102 paintings and a small body of prints. The initial canvases were made when Warhol was fifty years old (1978) and commissioned by art dealer Heiner Friederich, co-founder of the DIA Art Foundation. The paintings were first exhibited at Friederich’s New York Gallery (in 1979) and were hung flush to each other creating one continuous immersive environment. It is believed that the shadow depicted in all of these works was based on a single photograph of a shadow cast in Warhol’s studio.

Five suites of Shadows prints were created in very small editions, each featuring Warhol’s diamond dust technique; every print is unique: Shadows I (1979, FSII. 204-209), edition of 15 plus proofs; Shadows II (1979, FS II 210-215), edition of 10 plus proofs; Shadows III (1979, FS 216-221), edition of 3 plus proofs; Shadows IV and V (1979, FS II 222-223, 224-225, respectively), editions of 10 plus proofs.

About the diamond dust – Warhol was introduced to this technique by his Master Printer, Rupert Jasen Smith, in 1979. At first, Smith and Warhol used actual diamond dust – but it was not shiny or reflective. Warhol then began using crushed glass because it provided the reflective and dazzling surface he wanted; the name “diamond dust” stuck and was first used on a special edition of his Grapes prints in 1979. (See FS. II. 190A-195A.) With his Shadows portfolios (I-V), unlike the Grapes prints, Warhol integrated diamond dust across the entire printed surface of the artwork, along with added brush marks.