Action Picture
From Cowboys and Indians

Medium: Screenprint in colors on Lenox Museum Board
Year: 1986
Sheet: 36×36 inches (91.4 x 91.4 cm)
Edition: 36 TP (Trial Proof) of each print
Each print is unique
Publisher: Gaultney, Klineman Art, Inc., New York
Printer: Rupert Jasen Smith, New-York
Literature: Feldmann & Schellmann II.375

Signed and numbered in pencil lower right or left

 

In Action Picture, Warhol appropriated the center section of Charles Schreyvogel’s seminal painting Breaking Through the Line (Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma), from the early 1900s, of a cavalry officer brazenly charging towards the viewer amid an altercation between Native Americans and American soldiers. This engagement with both high art and themes distinctly tied with the history of the American West proves to be unique in all of Warhol’s artistic oeuvre. However, interestingly, as the work was omitted from the final portfolio, it exists, much like the painting from which it was based, only in unique form. 36 trial proofs of this image were created, each experimenting with different colors and compositions that are wholly individual.

Charles Schreyvogel, Breaking Through the Line (Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma)

 

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Auction Results

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In this impression, the coloration of brash red set against cool blues and light pink emphasizes the composition which bursts with the same intensity, urgency, and emotion present in Schreyvogel’s painting, but brought forward for the contemporary viewer in Warhol’s own distinctive style. While it may not fit with Gaultney and Klineman’s vision for the portfolio, Action Picture and the other experimental trial proofs for this series provide small clues to the innerworkings of Warhol’s vision and the potential trajectory of his artistic output exploring high art and mythmaking in a distinctly American artistic framework.

Christie’s New-York: 24 April 2014
Estimated: USD 15,000 – 25,000
USD 52,500

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)
Action Picture, from Cowboys and Indians, 1986
Screenprint in colors on Lenox Museum Board
Signed in pencil, numbered ‘TP 34/36’