
Andy Warhol 1928-1987
In 1984, Andy Warhol created a series of four screen prints based on Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (c.1482), part of his Details of Renaissance Paintings portfolio. This late body of work exemplifies Warhol’s unique ability to collapse the divide between high art and mass culture. By fragmenting and enlarging specific areas of Botticelli’s iconic composition, Warhol shifts the focus from narrative and symbolism to surface and image.
The prints do not reproduce the original painting in full. Instead, Warhol isolates and reprocesses its most recognisable forms, transforming historical masterworks into Pop abstractions. Through cropping, repetition, and silkscreen reproduction, Botticelli’s Renaissance ideal is reimagined as a flat, consumable image—stripped of context, but heightened in visual impact.
The Details of Renaissance Paintings series reflects Warhol’s lifelong engagement with reproduction, art history, and cultural permanence. Where his early works explored celebrity and consumer goods, these prints extend that logic to canonical Western art, placing Venus alongside soup cans, screen idols, and political figures within a single, image-saturated continuum.
This complete set of four prints is presented in excellent condition, signed and numbered, and offered by Coskun Fine Art with full authentication and provenance upon request.
Literature
Catalogue Raisonnee: Feldman & Schellmann II.316 – 319