Andy Warhol

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Warhol’s voyeuristic interest in the male body can be seen throughout his oeuvre, especially in films such as ‘Sleep’ of 1963 and in his stitched photographs of 1986. This fascination is first seen in his early line drawings of young men from the mid to late 1950s, of which many were included in his ‘Drawings for a Boy Book’ exhibition, at the Bodley Gallery in 1956. Here, Warhol depicts a young man with his eyes closed, apparently sleeping, which heightens the feeling of voyeurism. The style of Warhol’s boy drawings is similar to the work of Henri Matisse and Jean Cocteau, who both employed a reductive, linear drawing technique and whose work Warhol admired.

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