Title: Action Picture (FS II.375)
Medium: Screenprint on Lenox Museum Board.
Year: 1986
Size: 36″ x 36″
Edition: Edition of 36. Portfolio of 4.
ACTION PICTURE COWBOYS AND INDIANS
Action Picture Cowboys and Indians is a screenprint from the Andy Warhol series. In this series Warhol explores the Old West as an All-American collective history. Warhol’s work creates a commentary on mass media and the way in which contrived imagery can affect how we understand our history. Images of Geronimo, Annie Oakley and Mother and Child are based on characters in the Hollywood adaptation of our history and do not truly represent the roles that these real individuals historically played.
ACTION PICTURE COWBOYS AND INDIANS AS PART OF ANDY WARHOL’S LARGER BODY OF WORK
Warhol interspersed recognizable portraits of well-known American “heroes”–John Wayne, Annie Oakley, Teddy Roosevelt, and General George Custer–with less familiar Native American images and motifs in his ironic commentary on Americans’ collective mythologizing of the historic West. Rather than portraying Native Americans within their historical landscape or Cowboys in their veritable forms, Warhol chose to portray a popular, romanticized version of the American West. The West that he chose to represent is familiar to everyone and can be seen in novels, films, TV series. Warhol’s Cowboys and Indians Suite is an ahistorical representation that mirrors a popular interpretation of the American West. Action Picture FS II375 is a fine example of Warhol’s aesthetic intent in its reduction of an entire heritage and way of life into a single “trademark” image.
