Andy Warhol
CANTALOUPES FROM SPACE FRUIT, 1979
Screenprint on Lenox Museum Board
30 x 40 ins 76.2 x 101.6 cm
149/150
Available at VFA
It’s been 38 years since Andy Warhol died, at age 58, after undergoing gallbladder surgery. In the years following his death, the interest in his art, and in the artist himself, has increased.
At Christie's auction last month his Flowers screenprint, done in 1964, garnered $35.5 million after nearly five minutes of bidding and The Last Supper, done in 1968 was sold for $7.06 million.
Andy Warhol in Iran, a play being performed at the Mosaic Theater in Washington, D.C., was inspired by an actual visit that Warhol made to Iran in 1976. He traveled to Tehran with Bob Colacello, editor of Warhol’s Interview magazine from 1971 to 1983, The trip was arranged by the Iranian ambassador to the U.S.
The purpose of the trip was for Warhol to meet the Shah’s wife, Empress Farah Pahlavi. Warhol was to take Polaroids of Pahlavi to be made into portraits, which were actually completed in 1977, just two years before the Shah was exiled and the Ayatollah Khomeini took power.
The play, imagines Warhol in his suite at the Tehran Hilton, being confronted by a young Iranian revolutionary, who threatens to kidnap Warhol as a protest against the Shah.
Warhol gets to tell his rags-to-riches story to the young revolutionary and the rest is… historical fiction.
Andy Warhol in Iran will be at the Mosaic Theater through June 29, 2025.
Warhol was often surrounded by, and created images of, many beautiful women. Some of them became part of his entourage at The Factory. A twist on that theme was done by the writers of The Love Boat in 1985. Warhol played himself, although he had few lines.
The plot centered around a woman named Mary, who had been in one of Warhol’s movies in her younger days. She had never told her straight-laced husband about her wild time at The Factory. The couple is played by Marion Ross and Tom Bosley, Happy Days’ Mr & Mrs Cunningham.
Warhol liked to work in series and create multiples of each subject. Screenprinting allowed him to vary the colors, using multiple screens. In 1977 he met printer Rupert Jasen Smith who worked with him to create the series Space Fruit, available at VFA. Each print was done with multiple layers to produce a richness of color.
Good Business: Andy Warhol’s Screenprints is a current exhibit at The Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, that examines many of the works that Warhol created during his career. The exhibit will be on view through September 1, 2025.
Please contact us if you would like more information about the work by Andy Warhol available at VFA.
References:
Annie Armstrong. Phillips Nets Lean $52 Million in New York, Led by Basquiat That David Bowie Bought for $93,000. ArtNet. May 13, 2025.
Zachary Small and Tim F. Schneider. Can These Six Artists Predict the Fate of the Art Market? The New York Times. May 12, 2025.
Charles Green. A far-out artist meets a real rebel in ‘Andy Warhol in Iran’ at Mosaic. DC Theater Arts. June 2, 2025.
Dan Washburn. Traveling to Iran with Andy Warhol. Northlight Theater. January 12, 2023.
