Charles Ireland
Andy Warhol
Description
Subject Matter:
This is a portrait of Charles Ireland. In 1979, Warhol was commissioned to take a series of polaroids of Ireland in order to produce a number of silkscreen prints. Ireland was a chairman and president of Birmingham's Vulcan Materials Company and supported the Birmingham Museum of Art.
The Warhol Foundation, celebrating Andy Warhol’s lifelong engagement and experimentation with photography, donated this collection of Polaroid photographs. The majority of Warhol’s Polaroid images were taken using Polaroid Big Shot or SX-70 Polaroid cameras from 1970-1987, although his work in this medium began as early as 1958. Throughout his career, he photographed artists, celebrities, sports heroes, and friends using his Polaroid cameras. Over half his sitters were not well-known or remain unidentified. Warhol often photographed his subjects multiple times from a variety of angles. The resulting portraits often repeat poses and frequently portray subjects wearing similar thickly applied white makeup, eyeliner, and red lipstick, which were visual techniques used to flatten the subjects' features, as Warhol often used the Polaroid photographs as the basis for portraits made in the mediums of silkscreen and paint.
Physical Description:
A bust-length portrait of a man. He wears a patterned suit, tie, and rests his hand in front of his face, his index finger on his chin, revealing a watch.
Usage Rights:
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