Andy Warhol, The New Spirit screenprint 1985 from Ads Series features the Disney character Donald Duck from a still of a Disney short film about war propaganda. With his early artistic background in commercial art, Warhol was fascinated with advertisements and their influence on American pop culture throughout his life. In 1985, Warhol created his Ads Series, a series of works centered around popular ads of the time. Chanel’s No. 5 perfume bottle, Volkswagen’s Beetle, Paramount’s mountain logo, Life Savers’ ad and Macintosh’s Apple were all featured in the portfolio along with a few others. Warhol constantly blurred the line between commercial art and fine art, and he challenged Americans’ ideas around the definition of art itself. This print is an excellent example of this facet of Warhol’s career. Donald Duck is one of the most famous Disney characters, aside from Mickey Mouse himself. Disney embodies the American entertainment industry and consumerism. This work shows a scene from a Disney short about encouraging the public to pay incomes taxes without complaint. Warhol often commented on the power mass media has in American society and this is a perfect example of the government using it for their own purposes.

Created in 1985, Andy Warhol, The New Spirit s from Ads Series is a screenprint on Lenox Museum Board. This work is hand-signed by Andy Warhol and numbered from the edition of 190 in pencil in the lower right image.

Andy Warhol Ads Series, 1985:

Andy Warhol’s Ads series of 1985 features a variety of advertisements and logos of popular consumer brands including Chanel No. 5, Paramount, Volkswagen, Mobilgas, and Apple.

Interested in exploring the relationship between art and commerce, Warhol understood advertisements to be ubiquitous and influential forms of visual culture that could be celebrated through art. By reproducing these quotidian advertisements as art, Warhol questions the value of traditional art forms and the role of the artist in a commercial society.

Each artwork in the series features the product or brand name in bold letters, surrounded by vibrant colors and other design elements. Warhol's use of repetition and bright colors gives these advertisements a sense of familiarity and immediacy, emphasizing their power over consumer desires and popular culture at large.

This screenprint is part of a portfolio of 10 works Warhol created in 1985 titled The Andy Warhol Ads Series . Other works in the Series include Apple, Mobil, Rebel Without a Cause (James Dean), Van Heusen (Ronald Reagan), Paramount, Blackglama (Judy Garland), Chanel, The New Spirit (Donald Duck), Lifesavers, Volkswagen.

Catalogue Raisonné & COA:
Andy Warhol, Andy Warhol, The New Spirit s from the Ads Series is fully documented and referenced in the below catalogue raisonnés 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. Andy Warhol Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné 1962 – 1987, 4th Ed. New York: Distributed Art Publishers, Inc., 2003. Andy Warhol, The New Spirit is listed and illustrated as catalogue raisonné no. II.355.
2. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany our Andy Warhol, The New Spirit.

About the Framing:
Andy Warhol, The New Spirit is framed to museum-grade, conservation standards, Andy Warhol, Van Heusen, 1985 from the Ads Series is presented in a complementary moulding and finished with silk-wrapped mats and optical grade Plexiglas.