The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, New York
Gagosian Gallery, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above in 1998

Monaco, Grimaldi Forum, Super Warhol, July - August 2003, cat. no. 267, pp. 514-515, illustrated in color 

This painting is in very good condition overall. There are anomalies from the silkscreening process scattered throughout this large canvas. In some cases, the screening did not fully saturate an area with color, leaving tiny spots of underlayer apparent. In other cases, there are stray small dots of pigment that migrated to another color area, and some colors pooled, leading to a higher sheen. A few scattered anomalies appear to have been retouched during the completion of the work in the studio. As is typical of such large canvases in Warhol's oeuvre, there are occasional soft creases in the canvas prior to execution of the work. Some soft creases can be short while others can range to 2-3 feet in length. The canvas is unframed and the stretcher breaks down into four equal sections for deinstallation and transport.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Andy Warhol's series of Camouflage paintings consists of a concentrated oeuvre all executed in the early to mid-1980s.  The patterned camouflage design is transformed into an even more powerfully elegiac painting.  Eerily prophetic of the artist's death in 1987, it may be the final puzzle in what was a gloriously puzzling life and body of work.  Unlike his Camouflage Last Suppers or Camouflage Self-Portraits, in Camouflage from 1986, Warhol does not share with the viewer what he is concealing. The s💝cale is overwhelming and yet there is nothing to be glimpsed behind the repeated camouflage pattern.  The visually dynamic image is defined by its ability to conceal so we are forced to ask what Warhol is concealing.  Warhol's genius for irony is seemingly most dramatic in the employment of disguise in the act of revelation. Here, the abstract images refuse revelation, and through this denial, the artist appears to be, in the final analysis, unknowable to the viewer.

 

Linked conceptually with the Shadow and Rorschach paintings as abstractions, the Camouflage paintings are intriguingly enigmatic.  All three series create powerfully haunting iconic images out of seemingly nothing, and approach the realm of pure abstraction.  The Shadow paintings in particular reiterate their ability to exist on the borderline between form and formlessness.  Warhol's chief pre-occupation in the creation of these works has been with the creation of enigma.  As Donna de Salvo notes of the Shadow paintings, "no essence is revealed, no single truth asserts itself.  The experience is one of a late twentieth century landscape, everything is surface and nothing but surface." (Exh. Cat., London, Tate Gallery, Andy Warhol, London, 2002, p. 51) By this point in his career, Warhol had dissociated himself from the commercial subject matter that had consumed him for much of his earlier career.  Warhol began this divergence with the Oxidation paintings and ended it with the Rorschach and Camouflage works of the 1980s.  In all three series, Warhol produced grandly monumental versions which in their scale become a presence that overwhelms💯 the sense but refuses comprehension.

 

The large scale Camouflage murals have a seductive and suggestive star quality that Warhol always desired and appropriately are produced during his last burst of creativity.  Taking the innovation of his Shadow paintings a step further, Warhol's use of camouflage develops the notion of reality as disguise by offering up a section of army camouflage for large scale scrutiny.  Using a sample of fabric purchased from an Army surplus store as his subject, Warhol both playfully satirized the flat patterning of abstract form found in the work of the Abstract Expressionists and asked his usual questions about where the borderlines exist between what is considered real and what is not. Ronnie Cutrone notes, "For years [Warhol] would try his hand at abstract painting and secretly believed that abstraction was "real art."" (Steven Bluttal ed., Andy Warhol "Giant" Size, London 2006, p. 522)

At the same time, like Alighiero Boetti, who also used camouflage with reference to the world of fashion, there is a powerful element of humor in this work as Warhol was highly conscious of camouflage as army ``fashion''.  The notion of camouflage as a decorative surface is deliberately stressed reflecting a typically camp subversion of the material's conventional macho and military associations.  Bob Colacello, an associate of Warhol's, suggests the Camouflage paintings demonstrate "an almost effortless ability to summon up an entire range of art historical references from Chinese landscapes to Monet's Water Lilies...Of course pretending he didn't know anything about art history was one of the many ways in which Warhol camouflaged himself....For Warhol, the art of deception, the fun of fooling people, mystifying, hiding, lying – camouflaging, if you will – was a compulsion, a strategy, and a camp." (Exh. Cat., New York, Gagosian Gallery, Andy Warhol: Camouflage, 1998, p. 8)