Andy Warhol’s final work revisits Milan 30 years since its debut

Date
21 March 2017
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Andy Warhol in front of The Last Supper (yellow, 1986). Courtesy of Gagosian

Andy Warhol’s final series and one of his largest works, Sixty Last Suppers will be on display at Museo Del Novecento, Milan from 24 March – 28 May 2017.

Sixty Last Suppers was a key piece of Andy Warhol’s final opus, The Last Supper debuting in Milan 30 years ago, commissioned by gallerist Alexandre Iolas in 1984. Andy was invited to respond to the original mural by Leonardo da Vinci, created almost five centuries before from 1495 – 1498.

“As with most subjects, Warhol approached The Last Supper through mediations of the original, rather than the original itself,” says the gallery. Andy created “close to 100 variations on the theme – silkscreen paintings, prints and works on paper – attesting to a deep engagement with the impactful spiritual masterpiece.”

The piece is approximately the same size in scale as Leonardo’s original. Similar in style to Andy’s practice of repeating icons, “the painting is focused on an image of the architecturally framed supper room with its occupants, rather than a single iconic figure,” explains the gallery. “The sober black and white reproduction is repeated 60 times so that, from a distance, the ten metre-wide silkscreened canvas appears like an image of a modernist building with a grid of identically scaled units.”

As Andy Warhol’s last completed piece before his unexpected death “_The Last Supper_ serves as a powerful reiteration of the principles that informed his entire artistic enterprise.”

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Andy Warhol: Sixty Last Suppers, 1986. Photograph by Rob McKeever, courtesy of Gagosian

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Andy Warhol at the opening, January 22, 1987. Courtesy of Gagosian

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Andy Warhol signing copies of Interview, January 22, 1987. Courtesy of Gagosian

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Andy Warhol in front of The Last Supper (red, 1986). Courtesy of Gagosian

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Andy Warhol: The Last Supper, 1985. Courtesy of Gagosian

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About the Author

Lucy Bourton

Lucy (she/her) is the senior editor at Insights, a research-driven department with It's Nice That. Get in contact with her for potential Insights collaborations or to discuss Insights' fortnightly column, POV. Lucy has been a part of the team at It's Nice That since 2016, first joining as a staff writer after graduating from Chelsea College of Art with a degree in Graphic Design Communication.

lb@itsnicethat.com

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