Condition Museum quality, the colors and diamond dust particularly fresh, the margins full. Floated archival aluminum frame with UV plexiglass.
Provenance Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Inc., New York
Literature Frayda Feldman and Jorg Schellmann, Andy Warhol Prints: A Catalogue Raisonne: 1962-1987, Fourth Edition, D.A.P., New York, 2003, Catalogue Reference F&S II. 267; another impression reproduced in color page 119.
About Andy Warhol Myths When Andy Warhol created his now famous Myths Series in 1981, Warhol tackled the question of who are the American myths of the 20th Century. Although Warhol spent the bulk of his career celebrating icons and images of celebrities, to create the Myths Series, Warhol choose images that captured and captivated us in modern culture the way gods and goddesses captivated the masses in ancient Rome. Since the beginning of his career, Warhol was a visionary about transforming and elevating banal objects, including soup cans, dollar bills and coca cola bottles, some of the many Pop Art objects that Warhol sought to elevate into symbols of the modern world. For the Myths Series, Warhol was more explicit in his intentions to identify the gods of modern American culture.
How Did Andy Warhol Select Myths Images In a world obsessed with pop culture, five of the Myths images Andy Warhol selected were famous 20th Century cinematic personalities, including Superman, Mickey Mouse, Dracula, The Wicked Witch of the West and King Kong. Others Warhoil selected for his Myths Series were the ubiquitous Santa Claus, Uncle Sam, Howdy Dowdy and Mammy. However, one of the ten Myth Series images he chose to celebrate was at the time, not as recognizable, the image of Andy Warhol himself as The Shadow.
To create The Shadow, Andy Warhol created a profile of a shadow largely reminiscent of the one used by filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock.
With this self-portrait, Andy Warhol neatly inserts himself into the pantheon of American icons, and clearly in the forty years since he created the iconic image of The Shadow, Warhol has been elevated to instant international mythic status. Warhol was always fascinated with his self portrait image and created many versions of himself in the 60's, 70's and 80's, sometimes instraight forward perspectivewhile other times more harangued when he fashioned a self portrait of himself beingstrangled.
For The Shadow Self-Portrait, Andy Warhol created an image in which the Artist's haunting shadow rather than his face is the main focus of the work, demonstrating he is ironically aware that people are obsessed with the idea of him rather than who he is as a person. Andy Warhol The Shadow, 1981 screenprint was executed in an edition of 200 impressions plus 30 Artist Proof (AP's) impressions as part of the Myths portfolio of ten screenprints. In addition, Andy Warhol created other versions of The Shadow both on canvas as well as a small group of unique screenprints on Lenox Museum board, each created in a unique color combination.
In 2018 Joseph K. Levene Fine Art, Ltd. loaned multiple Andy Warhol works to Andy Warhol—From A to B and Back Again, the Andy Warhol retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, which subsequently traveled in 2019 to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and in 2020 to the Art Institute of Chicago. Most recently Joseph K. Levene Fine Art, Ltd. loaned three George Condo paintings to the George Condo Retrospective at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris from October 10, 2026 to February 15, 2026. Organized in collaboration with George Condo, this was the most significant museum exhibition of George Condo’s work. Presented thematically, the 200 work retrospective included 80 paintings, 110 drawings and 20 sculptures.
