Important Winter Sale presents Andy Warhol

Bukowskis presents the work "Three portraits of Ingrid Bergman by Andy Warhol" by Andy Warhol at the upcoming auction, Important Winter Sale – the live auction featuring the best by the best in art, antiques, Asian works of art, and jewellery.

The complete portfolio with three silkscreens in colours, 1983, each signed in pencil and numbered 74/250, printed by Rupert Jasen Smith, New York, published by Galerie Börjeson, Malmö. I./S: 96.5 x 96.5 cm. Purchased by the current owner at Galerie Börjeson, Malmö 1984.

The famous portfolio featuring Andy Warhol's three portraits of Ingrid Bergman was released in 1983 by the Swedish Galerie Börjeson. In the preface to the folder, Per-Olov Börjeson describes how the idea for the portfolio was born during a meeting between him and the artist. Warhol's fascination with Hollywood superstars was well known and had previously in his career been expressed in several portraits of film stars using various techniques.

“At our meeting in the fall of 1982 we discussed these very 'Warhol' portraits and in the course of this conversation of the stars of the cinema world Ingrid Bergman's name was brought up. […]

It was during this conversation that the idea of a series of graphic prints to honor the memory of a great artist whom we both admired, was born. […]

In these three prints we meet a new Andy Warhol. Gone is the very deliberate sense of distance which characterized the earlier portraits, objective almost documentary in their lack of personal judgement, portraits of roles played rather than lived by people. The three portraits of Ingrid Bergman reveal Andy Warhol's personal feelings and unbounded admiration for a woman and actress whom he knew.

The titles of the three prints are: The Nun" (from "the Bells of St Mary's"), "With hat" (from "Casablanca") and "Herself". This last title reveals just how far Andy Warhol has gone beyond the portrait of a star-role to a statement of undisguised, personal feeling in a portrait which is so strikingly beautiful as to reveal the mutual kinship between two great artists."

More about the work