James Dean by Andy Warhol

James Dean ( Rebel Without a Cause)  from Andy Warhol’s Ads series. The Ads Portfolio of prints by Andy Warhol is one of his most sought after and iconic sets of prints. This Andy Warhol portfolio includes images of Judy Garland and the iconic Paramount logo . The Ads portfolio is made up of ten screen prints on Lenox Museum Board by Andy Warhol.

Since his depiction of Marilyn Monroe in the 1960’s, Andy Warhol has been intrigued by the impact of celebrities on popular culture. Here Warhol depicts another actor who died tragically young, and then became a legend after his death. The most important print in the ‘Ads” portfolio is this work: “Rebel Without a Cause (James Dean).” Over the past two years the work has performed extremely well at auction and is considered one of the artist’s most well-known prints from his later period.

More than twenty years after his death, Andy Warhol remains one of the most influential figures in contemporary art and culture. Warhol’s life and work inspires creative thinkers worldwide thanks to his enduring imagery, his artfully cultivated celebrity, and the ongoing research of dedicated scholars. His impact as an artist is far deeper and greater than his one prescient observation that “everyone will be world famous for fifteen minutes.” His omnivorous curiosity resulted in an enormous body of work that spanned every available medium and most importantly contributed to the collapse of boundaries between high and low culture.

A skilled social networker, Warhol parlayed his fame, one connection at a time, to the status of a globally recognized brand. Decades before widespread reliance on portable media devices, he documented his daily activities and interactions on his traveling audio tape recorder and beloved Minox 35EL camera.  Predating the hyper-personal outlets now provided online, Warhol captured life’s every minute detail in all its messy, ordinary glamour and broadcast it through his work, to a wide and receptive audience.