• 20th Century American Photographs

• Andy Warhol , 1983
• silver print
• 13 in. x 19 in. (33.02 cm x 48.26 cm)

• Francesco Scavullo  (1929 - January 6, 2004)
• American

• The Vallarino Photography Collection and Purchase Fund, 1984.120

• On View

Interpretive text from Exploring American Art: An Online Resource for the American Collections

Francesco Scavullo is chiefly known for flamboyant fashion photography.  Born on Staten Island, New York, in 1921, Scavullo grew up the son of a prosperous Manhattan restaurateur.  He made his first essays in photography during his teens, when he arranged portraits of his sister and her friends made up to look like movie stars.  By age nineteen, Scavullo was working for Vogue magazine and had gained notice for his photographs of models and celebrities.  He soon took his own studio in New York's Upper West Side, and for the next fifty years he occupied the first rank of American fashion photographers.  Most closely identified with his provocative covers for Cosmopolitan magazine, Scavullo influenced not only fashion photography but foundational notions of fashion and feminine beauty as well.  To achieve his vision, Scavullo left little to chance, carefully orchestrating the expression, clothing, and lighting of his subjects.  He died in 2004.

While images of aggressively seductive women were his trademark, Scavullo was also highly regarded for his photographs of celebrities, both male and female.  Dating to 1983, the Currier's Andy Warhol is a portrait of the famous Pop artist made a few years before his death in 1987.  With his left hand raised to his face, Warhol is captured in a state of picturesque disarray, his collar and cuff unbuttoned, a strap thrown over his right shoulder, and his white wig slightly off-kilter.  However, Scavullo's even, pristine lighting and the studied intensity of Warhol's gaze counterbalance the seemingly candid, casual portrayal of the subject.  Looking to nineteenth-century depictions of artists, writers, and other thinkers, Scavullo creates a romantic image of Warhol as a Man of Genius, a personality whose inner power transcends his outward shabbiness.

Born in 1928, Andy Warhol was a leading figure in the Pop Art movement of the 1960s.  His images of Campbell's Soup cans, Brillo boxes, and garishly silkscreened movie stars address the explosion of mass culture that resulted from the material prosperity of the 1950s.  Presented in a relatively deadpan manner, Warhol's images are often difficult to interpret.  The artist himself offered few clues, and his eccentric behavior brought him his own measure of celebrity.  By the early 1980s, when Scavullo made his portrait of the artist, Warhol was an established Pop icon.  Andy Warhol was purchased by the Currier Museum of Art in 1984.

VSD

REFERENCES

Enid Nemy.  "Francesco Scavullo, Fashion Photographer, Dies at 82."  New York Times, January 7, 2004.  Clipping contained in object file, Currier Museum of Art.

Enid Nemy.  Scavullo:  Photographs 50 Years.  New York:  Harry N. Abrams, 1997.