Crosses (Warhol)

Crosses are a series of works by the American artist Andy Warhol, completed between 1981-1982. Andy Warhol was born in 1928 and raised in a profoundly religious Byzantine Catholic family in Pittsburgh, attending multiples services a week during his adolescence. “Andy was a Catholic who went to Mass every single day of his life.” (John Richardson in conversation with Tobias Meyer, New York, October 2013)

Investigations of information from Vincent Fremont have so far established that the series contains the following works:

• Dozens of colored Polaroid's showing wooden crosses in varying arrangements on the floor are in possession of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual arts, Inc., New York. The crosses that were used for this purpose (4.8 x 2.6”) are kept in the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

• Four drawings, graphite on hand-made paper, ca. 32 x 24”, are in possession of the Andy Warhol Foundation.

• Eleven paintings, silkscreen prints on acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16”; four of them owned by the Andy Warhol Foundation, three owned by the Antony d’Offay Gallery, London, and four others are in possession of the Andy Warhol Museum. They present the twelve crosses in different colors, shown in three horizontal rows with four crosses to a row. In comparison to the large-scale series they are shown the wrong way round.

• Nineteen paintings, silkscreen prints on acrylic on canvas, 90 x 70”; four of them in possession of the Diozesanmuseum Kiln; two others owned by the Andy Warhol Museum; thirteen others owned by the Andy Warhol Foundation. One of these works sold at Sotheby's on June 30, 2020 for $US 2,660,000.