Andy Warhol Electric Chairs, 1971 FS II.78 features an image of New York's Sing Sing Penitentiary's electric chair, known as "Old Sparky." Warhol chooses a dark color scheme that reads like a photo negative, with inverted lights and darks. Warhol was inspired to create this series of prints by the intense national debate around the death penalty, which came to a head in 1972, when the federal government outlawed the punishment throughout the country. The artist also was influenced by his traumatic near death experience three years prior, in 1968. Warhol was shot by Valerie Solanas, a radical feminist who frequented his loft studio in New York City, The Factory. The shooting marked a notable shift in Warhol as a  person and an artist and he began to explore themes like death and violence in his work.

Created in 1971, this work is a screenprint on paper, hand signed by Andy Warhol in ball-point pen on verso.  Numbered from an edition of 250, dated '71 in ball-point and numbered with a rubber stamp on verso, aside from 50 Artist Proofs numbered in Roman numerals, signed and dated in ball-point pen on verso and stamped 'AP' and numbered with a rubber stamp on verso.

Catalogue Raisonné & COA:
Andy Warhol Electric Chairs, 1971 FS II.78 is fully documented and referenced in the below catalogue raisonné and texts (copies will be enclosed as added documentation with the invoices that will accompany the sale of the work).

1. Feldman, Frayda and Jörg Schellmann, A Catalogue Raisonne, 4th ed. Listed as catalogue raisonné no. II.78.
2. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany this artwork.

About the Framing:
Framed to museum-grade, conservation standards, Andy Warhol Electric Chairs, 1971 FS II.78 is presented in a complementary moulding and finished with silk-wrapped mats and optical grade Plexiglas.