Andy Warhol

Gun

1981

© 2020 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by DACS, London

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On loan

Museum Ludwig (Cologne, Germany): Warhol 2020

Artist: Andy Warhol 1928–1987
Medium: Acrylic paint and silkscreen on 2 canvases
Dimensions: Support, each: 1782 × 2286 × 40 mm
Collection: ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
Acquisition: ARTIST ROOMS Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
Reference: AR00231

Online caption

Death emerged as a distinctive theme in Warhol’s work in the 1960s, with his Marilyn Monroe portraits and the 'Death and Disaster' series. His fears about dying were heightened in 1968 when he was shot and critically injured by Valerie Solanas. The gun depicted here is similar to the .22 snub-nosed pistol that she used. At around the same time as he was painting guns Warhol was also doing a series of knife pictures. Indeed, the first idea was to show them together, along with some dollar-sign paintings, at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York in January 1982.