San Francisco Silverspot
from Endangered Species
Medium: Screenprint in colors on Lenox Museum Board
Year: 1983
Sheet: 38×38 inches (96.5 x 96.5 cm)
Edition: 150
Artist’s Proofs: 30 AP
Printer’s Proofs: 5 PP
Exhibitor’s Proofs: 5 EP
Hors Commerce: 3 HC
Bon a Tirer: 1 BAT
Other: 10 numbered in Roman numerals intended for wildlife organizations
Trial Proofs: 30 TP with unique color combination
(see Feldman & Schellmann IIB.298)
Publisher: Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Inc., New-York
Printer: Rupert Jasen Smith, New-York
Catalogue Raisonne: Feldman & Schellmann II.298
Signed and numbered in pencil, lower left or right
With the publisher’s inkstamp and the artist’s copyright stamp on reverse
San Francisco Silverspot, from the Endangered Species portfolio, is perhaps the most visually delicate—and conceptually incisive—composition of the series. Unlike the monumental presence of the elephant or the graphic assertiveness of the zebra, here Warhol isolates a single butterfly, suspended against a flat, saturated ground. The insect’s wings are fully extended, revealing an intricate network of black contours filled with luminous, almost psychedelic color. Electric blues, acidic oranges, and soft lavenders radiate across the surface, while the fine silkscreen lines preserve the fragility of the butterfly’s anatomy. The composition is striking in its restraint: a solitary form, centrally placed, hovering between scientific illustration and decorative motif.
San Francisco Silverspot is part of Endangered Species
(Click on picture below to access the Catalogue Entry)
Produced in 1983 and published by Ronald and Frayda Feldman, the Endangered Species portfolio reflects a moment when Warhol turned his attention—quietly but deliberately—toward environmental concerns. Printed by Rupert Jasen Smith in an edition of 150, the series employs Warhol’s characteristic silkscreen technique, layering photographic source imagery with hand-applied color fields. In San Francisco Silverspot, this process becomes particularly meaningful: the precision of the linework evokes the taxonomy of natural history, while the artificial coloration disrupts any illusion of neutrality, transforming the butterfly into a charged visual sign.
The subject refers to Speyeria zerene hippolyta, commonly known as the San Francisco silverspot butterfly, a species native to the coastal grasslands of Northern California. The name “silverspot” derives from the distinctive metallic silver markings found on the underside of its wings, a subtle feature that contrasts with the vibrant coloration of the upper surface. By the time Warhol created the print, the species had already become critically endangered, its population decimated by urban development, habitat loss, and the decline of its host plant, the violet. Today, it is considered extirpated from much of its historical range, with only fragile, carefully monitored populations remaining.
Warhol’s choice of the butterfly introduces a different register within the series. If the larger animals evoke power diminished or grandeur under threat, the silverspot speaks instead to ephemerality. Butterflies have long carried symbolic weight in art history—metamorphosis, beauty, the brevity of life—and Warhol subtly activates this lineage while filtering it through the lens of Pop. The insect becomes both specimen and ornament, its image recalling the decorative patterns of textiles or wallpaper as much as the pages of a scientific atlas. One could almost imagine it repeated endlessly across a surface, stripped of its biological reality and absorbed into design.
This tension between singularity and repetition lies at the heart of the work. Warhol, who built his career on the serial reproduction of images, here presents a creature whose existence is anything but reproducible. The butterfly’s life cycle—fragile, contingent, dependent on precise ecological conditions—stands in stark contrast to the mechanical logic of the silkscreen. By rendering the silverspot in such vivid, seductive terms, Warhol risks aestheticizing its disappearance, yet it is precisely this seduction that draws attention to what is being lost.
Within the Endangered Species portfolio, San Francisco Silverspot occupies a quietly radical position. It reduces the scale of both subject and composition, forcing the viewer into a more intimate encounter. There is no spectacle here, no overt drama—only a small, exquisite form that seems almost too fragile to endure the visual intensity imposed upon it. In this sense, the work resonates with Warhol’s broader late practice, where surface brilliance often conceals a deeper meditation on mortality and disappearance.
Warhol does not dramatize the butterfly’s plight; he isolates it, elevates it, and, in doing so, leaves it suspended in a state of luminous uncertainty. It is an image that hovers, much like its subject, between presence and disappearance.
Auction Market Overview
Regular Editions
Sotheby’s New-York: 14 April 2026
Estimated: USD 80,000 – 120,000
USD 166,400
ANDY WARHOL (1928 – 1987)
San Francisco Silverspot, from Endangered Species (Feldman & Schellmann II.298), 1983
Screenprint in colors on Lenox Museum Board
Signed in pencil and inscribed AP 27/30
This impression is one of 30 artist’s proofs aside from the numbered edition of 150
With the blindstamp of the printer, Rupert Jasen Smith
Published by Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Inc.
XXXXXXXXXX
Mallet Japan: 12 December 2024
Estimated: JPY 8,000,000 – 13,000,000
JPY 22,717,500 / USD 151,050
ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)
San Francisco Silverspot, from Endangered Species (Feldman & Schellmann, II.298), 1983
Screenprint in colors on Lenox Museum Board
Signed in pencil with a copyright stamp on the reverse
Numbered P.P. 1/5 (the edition was 150)
Barridoff Auctions: 13 April 2024
Estimated: USD 80,000 – 120,000
USD 110,000 (Hammer)
USD 137,500
ANDY WARHOL (Am. 1928-1987)
Endangered Species: San Francisco Silverspot
Screenprint
Signed and editioned “60/150” in pencil lower right
XXXXXXXXXX
Artnet Auctions: 31 May 2023
Estimated: USD 100,000 – 150,000
USD 162,500
AUCTION RECORD FOR SAN FRANCISCO SILVERSPOT
ANDY WARHOL
San Francisco Silverspot (from Endangered Species), 1983
Screen-print in colors on Lenox Museum Board
Signed and numbered ‘109/150’ in pencil
XXXXXXXXXX
Estimated: JPY 3,000,000 – 5,000,000
JPY 16,000,000 (Hammer)
JPY 18,640,000 / USD 136,962
San Francisco Silverspot from Endangered Species, 1983
Screenprint in colors on Lenox Museum Board
Signed and editioned on lower right
Embossed on lower left
Stamped on the verso
From the edition of 150
LA Modern: 17 February 2019
Estimated: USD 30,000 – 50,000
USD 71,875
ANDY WARHOL
San Francisco Silverspot (from Endangered Species Portfolio), 1983
Color screen-print on Lenox Museum Board
Signed with edition in graphite lower right edge of sheet, and numbered ’21/150′
San Francisco Silver Spot (142/150)
Bonhams New-York: 21 May 2019
Estimated: USD 30,000 – 50,000
USD 25,075
San Francisco Silver Spot (21/150)
LA Modern: 17 February 2019
Estimated: USD 30,000 – 50,000
USD 71,875
San Francisco Silver Spot (18/150)
LA Modern: 9 October 2016
Estimated: USD 35,000 – 45,000
USD 56,250
San Francisco Silver Spot (AP 16/30)
Christie’s New-York: 15 July 2015
Estimated: USD 15,000 – 25,000
USD 60,000
San Francisco Silver Spot (II/X)
Doyle New-York: 28 April 2015
Estimated: USD 15,000 – 25,000
USD 37,500
San Francisco Silver Spot (53/150)
Christie’s New-York: 24 April 2015
Estimated: USD 15,000 – 25,000
USD 62,500
Trial Proofs
San Francisco Silverspot (TP 25/30)
Freeman’s: 8 May 2018
Estimated: USD 30,000 – 50,000
USD 80,000
TRIAL PROOF
ANDY WARHOL (AMERICAN, 1928-1987)
“SAN FRANCISCO SILVERSPOT” FROM “ENDANGERED SPECIES”, 1983
Color screenprint on Lenox Museum Board
Pencil signed and numbered ‘TP 25/30’
A unique trial proof aside from the regular edition of 150 plus 30 artist’s proofs
San Francisco Silverspot (TP aside)
Christie’s New-York: 26 April 2011
Estimated: USD 40,000 – 50,000
USD 50,000
TRIAL PROOF
ANDY WARHOL
San Francisco Silverspot, from Endangered Species (see F. & S. II.298), 1983
Unique screenprint in colors on Lenox Museum Board
A proof apart from the signed and numbered edition of 150
With the publisher’s and the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board, Inc. inkstamps on the reverse
(annotated ‘107.0911’ in pencil)
San Francisco Silverspot (TP 12/30)
Christie’s Los Angeles: 13 December 1999
Estimated: USD 5,000 – 7,000
USD 10,925
TRIAL PROOF
ANDY WARHOL
San Francisco Silverspot, for Endangered Species (F. and S. B.298), 1983
Unique screenprint in colors on Lenox Museum Board
Signed in pencil, numbered ‘T.P. 12/30’
One of 30 unique color variants aside from the edition of 150 plus 30 artist’s proofs