- Museum number
- 2015,7028.1
- Title
-
Object: Jackie II
-
Object: Jacqueline Kennedy II
- Description
-
A head and shoulders portrait of Jacqueline Kennedy in semi-profile to the left printed twice (side by side) in black against a pale magenta background. Kennedy is shown in dark clothing with a veil on her head (pulled back from her face) and the image is composed of small dots, resembling newspaper print. 1965, published 1966
Colour screenprint on wove paper
- Production date
- 1966
- Dimensions
-
Height: 607 millimetres (sheet)
-
Width: 759 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- This screenprint is from a portfolio titled '11 Pop Artists, vol. II', which was published by Original Editions, New York in an edition of 200, plus 50 copies bearing Roman numerals that were reserved for the artists and their collaborators. The BM version is number 183/200. The portfolio contained the following prints:
1. Jim Dine, 'Throat', screenprint
2. Peter Phillips, 'Custom Print II', screenprint on Alufoil
3. James Rosenquist, 'Whipped Butter for Eugen Ruchin', screenprint
4. Roy Lichtenstein, 'Reverie', screenprint
5. Andy Warhol, 'Jackie II' (aka 'Jacqueline Kennedy II')', screenprint
6. Allen Jones, 'Pour les Lèvres', screenprint
7. Allan D'Arcangelo, 'Landscape II', screenprint on vinyl
8. Gerald Laing, 'Slide', screenprint and collage on styrene
9. John Wesley, 'Bird Lady', screenprint
10. Tom Wesselmann, 'Nude', screenprint
11. Mel Ramos, 'Tobacco Rose', screenprint
All the works except those by Peter Phillips and Allen Jones were printed by Knickerbocker Machine & Foundry (KMF) Inc., New York. (Peter Phillips' contribution was printed by Chiron Press Inc., New York and 'Pour les Lèvres' by Allen Jones was printed by J & P Atchison Ltd., London.)
The purple cloth-covered portfolio box was designed by Elaine Lustig Cohen. It has a yellow interior and the title printed on the front in white, with the number '11' inside a circle and the words 'POP Artists' inside a triangle. 'Jackie II' is the only work from the portfolio that the BM owns although the print was acquired with the original box containing the titlepage and colophon with an introductory statement by Max Kozloff. "For all its notoriety,", Kozloff writes, "Pop art has never been a well-understood style. But the confusion with which it is still received, after four years, proves how lively, and even unsettling an art it is. This collection of original Pop graphics reflects the excitement of a phenomenon that has become one of the most searching in the visual arts."
Andy Warhol made a number of paintings and prints depicting Jacqueline Kennedy following the assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy, in 1963. This widely reproduced image of her at Kennedy's state funeral comes from a photograph taken by Fred Ward published in 'Life', 6 December 1963.
Text from Coppel, Daunt and Tallman, 'The American Dream: pop to the present', London: Thames and Hudson in association with the British Museum, 2017, cat. no. 138:
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963 shocked America and the world, and the event replayed continuously on television and in the press. Warhol shortly afterwards began his series of screenprinted, multiple-imaged paintings of the president’s glamorous widow, Jacqueline Kennedy, in 1963–64 using media pictures by Fred Ward from 'Life' magazine (6 December 1963). In 1966 he contributed three screenprints of Jackie to three group portfolios entitled '11 Pop Artists' utilizing the same source material. The three Jackie screenprints were produced by the New York commercial printers Knickerbocker Machine and Foundry, Inc. Warhol here presents the veiled widow isolated in her bereavement in front of the world’s press. The coarse dots of the news photo are enlarged by photoscreenprinting to the point that Jackie’s image appears to break up. The repetition of Jackie against a flat metallic surface of dolorous purple reinforces the subject’s tragic dimension.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2017 9 Mar-18 Jun, London, BM, G30, The American Dream
2018 2 Jun-2 Sept, Paris, Fondation Custodia, The American Dream: pop to the present
2020-21 8 Oct-31 Jan, Madrid, La Caixa Forum, The American Dream: pop to the present
2021 2 Mar-13 Jun, Barcelona, La Caixa Forum, The American Dream: pop to the present
2021 13 Jul-14 Nov, Zaragoza, La Caixa Forum, The American Dream: pop to the present
- Acquisition date
- 2015
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 2015,7028.1
