Gems

Andy Warhol Gems is a rare range of artworks created by artist Andy Warhol.

The full set of Gems came up only once at Sotheby’s London in 2007 and fetched $102,620. Wonderful opportunity to acquire this large unusual work, made during a period when Warhol was experimenting with abstraction. Although the subject is ostensibly a gem, it could also be referencing the famous photo of the earth “Blue Marble” taken in 1972 by the crew of Apollo 17 while in space. (The following year Warhol published a series entitled “Space Fruit”.) Warhol felt so strongly about the Gems that he published the series himself, but limited the edition size.

When Andy Warhol first burst onto the artistic stage in the 1960s’, he did so by incorporating images that were firmly embedded in the American psyche. His bright and colorful paintings and serigraphs presented images that were commonplace — a soup can or coke bottle — but were transformed by his technique into artistic icons of popular culture. Warhol was most interested in image and not reality, although one could say that by casting these mass produced commercial images in his own unique style, Warhol was making a comment on the reality of living in a world that was dominated by images from the advertising and entertainment industries. Warhol’s prints are in essence images of images. They are at least once removed, and often several times removed, from reality. His famous prints of Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy, not to mention countless other celebrities, are based on photographs. As in the case with Marilyn Monroe, many of those photographs are of his subjects posing as a character, not as themselves, a subtle reminder that once someone achieves a certain celebrity status, they become further and further removed from their real selves. How many layers must one remove to finally see the real person depicted in a Warhol print?