Ads
As a brand, advertising isn’t something we really buy into. But, when we were given the opportunity to bring Andy Warhol’s Black & White Ads series into our portfolio, well, we were sold! Before he was crowned The King of Pop Art, Warhol worked as a commercial illustrator in the ‘50s, gaining footing for his drawings of shoes for Glamour Magazine, followed by further notoriety for his freelance work for corporate clients including Tiffany and Co., Vogue, and RCA Records. His unique style not only resulted in countless awards, but also earned him a reputation as one of the most in demand commercial artists of the decade.
While Warhol continued to explore commercial imagery throughout his career - after all, he was fascinated with consumerism - in the ‘80s he developed a lesser-known sequence of silkscreened black and white paintings of images culled and traced from advertisements, diagrams, maps, and illustrations in popular print media that convey his characteristically concise view on life in contemporary America. All of Warhol’s constant themes are represented within: consumer culture, death and religion. Since his series resonates so profoundly even three plus decades later, we thought it was especially fit to print as wallpaper for all to absorb and digest all day, every day (as we do anyway). While Warhol offered many images to choose from, our tribute highlights his most introspective elements to create a design that’s less about the corporate way of life and more about your way of life. Just some things to think about…
©/®/TM The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
“It’s hard to think of ideas. That’s just another idea. It was a good idea. It’s just like that.”
See it in action!
