Bob Colacello

In 1965 Andy Warhol abandoned painting to pursue other, more so-called modern activities (namely, filmmaking and television), but by the 1970s he returned to it—albeit through Polaroid instant photography, then a cutting-edge consumer technology. Most of Warhol’s Polaroids are portraits that he took for potential use in his signature photo-silkscreen portraits, which were usually commissioned by notables from the worlds of fashion, mainstream entertainment, and the international art market. Typically, Warhol instructed his female sitters to apply heavy white makeup, which served to abstract—and flatter—their features. Once Warhol and the sitter selected the Polaroid they liked best from the hundreds he shot, Warhol would work with a technician to rephotograph, enlarge, and transfer the original Polaroid to a screen. As mechanical or impersonal as the process famously was, Warhol made countless creative decisions. He asked the technician to alter the shapes on the screen, hence the sitter’s face, in specific ways, and he applied all of the color to the canvas by hand before printing the screen on top (usually in black ink).