A♌ndy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, New York

George Frei and Neil Printz, eds., The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné: Paintings and Sculptures 1964 - 1969, Volume 02A, New York, 2004, cat. no. 1016, p. 159; cat. no. 1040, p. 169; cat. no. 1146, p. 205 and cat. no. 1179, p.𒐪 211, 🌞illustrated in color

Four Jackies is an exceptional presentation of one of Warhol's most poignant images - his well-known series of portraits of the First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, as seen by millions of viewers during the televised funeral procession for the assassinated President, John F. Kennedy.  The events of November 1963 were a searing moment of national shock and the televised proceedings and print media coverage surrounding this moment of communal grief brought images to our public consciousness that are as vivid today as they were when they occurred.  For an artist whose work was inspired by the confluence of public and private in the media and an artist who used the found imagery of newspapers, tabloids and media as his source material, Warhol would naturally respond to the most extensively covered media event of his time. 

Earlier, Warhol portrayed Jackie Kennedy in 1962 in the frontal, movie-star format used in his similar paintings of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor.  At that time, Mrs. Kennedy was the glamorous face of a young and vibrant post-war America, known for stylishness and grace.  As in the portraits of Marilyn and Liz, Warhol chose his subject with a sly nod toward the dichotomy between surface and substance, the obvious and the hidden as seen in the present work.  The three celebrities that Warhol cherished all had private turmoil or tragedy -- inner demons and suicide, unhappy marriages or near death illnesses -- yet it was the glittering surface persona that the public wished to see and that the media celebrated and exploited.  In the case of Jackie, the enormity of her tragedy in 1963 informed our sense of national loss, and her inner trauma was now allowed to become evident in her public persona, creating a more complicated image.  Four Jackies transforms her into a symbol of national mourning by juxtaposing the young widow with her pure essence of celebrity.  Warhol's fascination with death and disaster is intermingled with his fascination for celebrity more profoundly here t♑han anywhere else in Warhol's oeuvr🦄e.