Paramount
from Ads

Medium: Screenprint in colors on Lenox Museum Board
Year: 1985
Sheet: 38×38 inches (96.5 x 96.5 cm)
Edition: 190
Artist’s Proofs: 30 AP
Printer’s Proofs: 5 PP
Exhibitor’s Proofs: 5 EP
Hors Commerce: 10 HC
Other: 10 numbered in Roman numerals
Bon a Tirer: 1 BAT
Trial Proofs: 30 TP, each print is unique
(see Feldman & Schellmann IIB.352)
Printer: Rupert Jasen Smith, New-York
Publisher: Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Inc., New York
Literature: Feldman & Schellmann II.352

Each signed and numbered in pencil
With the printer’s and the publisher’s blindstamps
With the artist’s copyright and publisher’s inkstamps verso

Paramount is part of Ads
(Click on picture below to access the Catalogue Entry)

Paramount is one of the most distilled images in Warhol’s Ads portfolio, built around the instantly recognizable logo of Paramount Pictures: a mountain peak encircled by a constellation of stars. Warhol preserves the clarity and balance of the emblem while reconfiguring it through his silkscreen process, flattening space and intensifying color. The image operates with total immediacy. It does not describe; it declares. Warhol depicts the logo’s iconic mountaintop, rendered in white against a tricolored backdrop of pink, red and blue. The circular logo in the middle of the print is surrounded by an arch of stars in yellow and green. These vivid and unlikely colors contrast with the print’s white background. Warhol’s use of color and gestural lines works to vivify the mountain and its surrounding text. The production company’s name, Paramount, stands out, which reflects Warhol’s keen interest in American popular culture and mass media production.

Yet beneath this apparent simplicity lies a far more personal and historically grounded layer. During the early 1980s, Warhol was in a relationship with Jon Gould, a young executive at Paramount. Gould was not only emotionally significant to Warhol, but also represented a bridge between the artist and the contemporary corporate world of media and entertainment. Their relationship coincided precisely with the period leading up to the Ads series, introducing a more intimate proximity to the structures of Hollywood power.

Andy Warhol and Jon Gould, unique gelatin silver print, circa 1978

This context reframes the image. Paramount is no longer just a symbol of cinema or mass culture; it becomes part of Warhol’s lived environment. The logo, already saturated with cultural meaning, acquires a personal dimension. Warhol is not merely appropriating a corporate image: he is engaging with a system he is directly connected to, both socially and emotionally.

Within the broader logic of the Ads portfolio, Paramount marks a shift from individual icons to institutional ones. Earlier in his career, Warhol focused on the faces produced by Hollywood. By 1985, his attention turns toward the machinery behind those faces. The studio itself becomes the subject. The mountain and stars function as a condensed image of an entire industry: its mythology, its authority, and its capacity to manufacture visibility on a global scale.

Technically, the print reflects Warhol’s late mastery of screenprinting. The composition is tightly controlled, yet the layering of color introduces subtle variations across impressions, maintaining a tension between mechanical reproduction and artistic intervention. The image remains flat, but never inert.

Paramount ultimately operates on multiple levels at once. It is a corporate logo, a cultural symbol, and a personal reference embedded within Warhol’s final decade. As such, it stands as one of the more nuanced works in the Ads series—less about spectacle, and more about the structures, relationships, and systems that sustain it.

Auction Market Overview

Regular Editions

Sotheby’s London: 25 March 2026
Estimated: GBP 40,000 – 60,000
GBP 70,400 / USD 94,265

ANDY WARHOL (1928 – 1987)
Paramount, from Ads (F. & S. II.352), 1985
Screenprint in colours on Lenox Museum Board
Signed in pencil and numbered 96/190 (slightly rubbed)
This impression is number 96 from the edition of 190 plus 30 artist’s proofs
With the blindstamps of the printer, Rupert Jasen Smith, and the publisher, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Inc.
With their inkstamp verso

XXXXXXXXXX

Sotheby’s London: 24 September 2025
Estimated: GBP 50,000 – 70,000
PASSED

ANDY WARHOL (1928 – 1987)
Paramount, from Ads (F. & S. II.352), 1985
Screenprint in colours on Lenox Museum Board
Signed in pencil and numbered 96/190
This impression is number 96 from the edition of 190 plus 30 artist’s proofs

XXXXXXXXXX

SBI Art Auction: 25 May 2024
Estimated: JPY 7,000,000 – 13,000,000
JPY 13,800,000 / USD 87,926

ANDY WARHOL
Paramount (F&S II.352), 1985
Screenprint
Signed and numbered on the lower left, Copyright stamp on the reverse
From the edition of 190

XXXXXXXXXX

Rago Auctions: 10 October 2023
Estimated: USD 40,000 – 60,000
USD 94,500

Sotheby’s New-York: 19 April 2023
Estimated: USD 70,000 – 100,000
USD 120,650
AUCTION RECORD FOR PARAMOUNT

ANDY WARHOL (1928–1987)
Paramount, from Ads, 1985
Screen-print in colors on Lenox Museum Board
Signed in pencil and numbered 69/190

XXXXXXXXXX

Christie’s London: 24 March 2022
Estimated: GBP 30,000 – 50,000
GBP 81,900 / USD 107,976

ANDY WARHOL (1928–1987)
Paramount, from: Ads, 1985
Screen-print in colors on Lenox Museum Board
Signed in pencil, numbered AP 7/30
An artist’s proof aside from the edition of 190

XXXXXXXXXX

Heritage Auctions: 19 October 2021
Estimated: USD 40,000 – 60,000
USD 112,500

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)
Paramount, from Ads, 1985
Screenprint in colors on Lenox museum board
Edition: H.C. 4/10
Signed and numbered in pencil lower left, with blindstamps
Published by Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Inc., New York

Bonhams New-York: 26 May 2021
Estimate on Request
USD 81,562

Sotheby’s London: 17 March 2021
Estimated: GBP 30,000 – 40,000
GBP 52,920 / USD 73,960

ANDY WARHOL (1928–1987)
Paramount (F. & S. II.352), 1985
Screen-print in colors on Lenox Museum Board
Signed in pencil, numbered 92/190 (total edition includes 30 artist’s proofs)

XXXXXXXXXX

Sotheby’s London: 19 March 2020
Estimated: GBP 30,000 – 50,000
GBP 37,500 / USD 43,555

ANDY WARHOL (1928 – 1987)
PARAMOUNT (F. & S. II.352) from Ads, 1985
Screenprint in colors on Lenox Museum Board
Signed in pencil, numbered HC 6/10
An hors commerce impression aside from the edition of 190

XXXXXXXXXX

Sotheby’s New-York: 29 April 2019
Estimated: USD 40,000 – 60,000
USD 56,250

ANDY WARHOL (1928 – 1987)
PARAMOUNT (F. & S. II.352) from Ads, 1985
Screenprint in colors on Lenox Museum Board
Signed in pencil and inscribed ‘AP 20/30’
An artist’s proof aside from the numbered edition of 190

Christie’s London: 21 March 2019
Estimated: GBP 20,000 – 30,000
GBP 37,500 / USD 49,225

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)
Paramount, from: Ads, 1985
Screenprint in colors on Lenox Museum Board
Signed in pencil, numbered 3/190

XXXXXXXXXX

Paramount (3/190), 1985
Christie’s New-York: 24 October 2018
Estimated: USD 30,000 – 50,000
USD 52,500

Paramount (AP 3/30), 1985
Cornette de Saint-Cyr Brussels: 26 June 2018
Estimated: EUR 20,000 – 30,000
EUR 35,100 / USD 40,975

Paramount (170/190), 1985
Phillips London: 7 June 2017
Estimated: GBP 25,000 – 35,000
GBP 35,000 / USD 45,285

Paramount (115/190), 1985
Christie’s New-York: 27 April 2016
Estimated: USD 25,000 – 35,000
USD 47,500

Trial Proofs

Sotheby’s New-York: 22 October 2020
Estimated: USD 120,00 – 160,000
USD 163,800
TRIAL PROOF

ANDY WARHOL
PARAMOUNT (SEE F. & S. IIB.352), 1985
Screen-print in a unique color combination
Signed in pencil and inscribed ‘TP 3/30’
A trial proof aside from the numbered edition of 190 plus 30 artist’s proofs

Christie’s New-York: 20 April 2017
Estimated: USD 100,000 – 150,000
USD 125,000
TRIAL PROOF

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)
Paramount, from Ads, 1985
Unique screenprint in colors on Lenox Museum Board
Signed in pencil, numbered ‘TP 23/30’
A trial proof, the edition was 190 plus 30 artist’s proofs

Sotheby’s New-York: 21 April 2016
Estimated: USD 70,000 – 100,000
USD 137,500
TRIAL PROOF

ANDY WARHOL
Paramount (F. & S. IIB.352), from the Ads portfolio, 1985
Screenprint in colors on Lenox Museum Board
Signed in pencil, inscribed ‘TP 22/30’
A trial proof in unique colors aside from the regular edition of 190 plus 30 artist’s proofs

Sotheby’s London: 15 March 2005
Estimated: GBP 6,000 – 7,000
GBP 10,800 / USD 20,695
TRIAL PROOF

ANDY WARHOL
Paramount, from Ads (F&S IIB.352), 1985
Screenprint in a unique combination of colors
Signed in pencil, numbered TP 11/30
One of thirty unique color trial proofs, aside from the regular edition of 190