
Andy Warhol 1928-1987
Further images
Andy Warhol’s Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century (1980) is a complete portfolio of screen prints depicting ten influential Jewish figures in modern history, spanning the worlds of science, politics, philosophy, music, and entertainment. Subjects include Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Franz Kafka, Sarah Bernhardt, Golda Meir, Louis Brandeis, Martin Buber, George Gershwin, Gertrude Stein, and the Marx Brothers.
Commissioned in the late 1970s and first exhibited in 1980, the series reflects Warhol’s ongoing interest in cultural icons and the nature of fame. Unlike his earlier portraits of contemporary celebrities, the individuals in this portfolio had already entered the realm of historical legacy. Warhol selected figures who, in his words, possessed "great Jewish genius"—each of them widely recognisable, each already memorialised through image and reputation.
Using his signature silkscreen technique, Warhol based the portraits on existing photographic material, enhancing and flattening the images to focus attention on their constructed visual identity. The portfolio is not biographical; it is meditative. These are not personal portraits, but icons—decontextualised, stylised, and filtered through Warhol’s graphic language.
Initially met with critical ambivalence, the series has since gained recognition for its conceptual consistency and for extending Warhol’s portraiture into historical and intellectual terrain. Today, the complete portfolio is viewed as a key late work, drawing together Warhol’s obsessions with fame, image, memory, and repetition.
Coskun Fine Art offers the complete Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century in excellent condition, with full authentication and provenance available upon request.
Literature
Catalogue Raisonee: Feldman & Schelmann II. 226 -235