''Self-Portrait'' is a 1986 work by the American artist

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...

. The portrait is in a

camouflage Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the b ...

-patterned foreground with a black background.

Analysis

Andy Warhol made ''Self-portrait'' a few months before his death, which was in February 1987. It uses a Polaroid photograph of him, with the material of acrylic polymer paint and silk screen printing to produce a

pattern over the face surrounded by black. The

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

describes the image: "Warhol appears as a haunting, disembodied mask. His head floats in a dark black void and his face and hair are ghostly pale, covered in a militaristic camouflage pattern of green, gray, and black." There is a contrast between the impersonality of the camouflage pattern, which hints at danger, and the personality of the portrait tradition, where there is direct contact with the viewer, although in this case with a protective illusory covering. The ambiguous uses of camouflage—drawing attention when a fashionable look and doing the opposite in military use—fascinated Warhol. A version in the Philadelphia Museum of Art uses pink and magenta on the same black background."Camouflage Self-portrait"
Philadelphia Museum of Art. Retrieved 2 March 2009. Another version similar to the one kept at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is part of the

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum. The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...

's modern art collection.

Notes

External links

Version in the Philadelphia Museum of Art
{{DEFAULTSORT:Camouflage Self-Portrait Paintings by Andy Warhol 1986 paintings Self-portraits 20th-century portraits Paintings in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Camouflage patterns