Andy Warhol: Portrait of America: A lucid primer to a brilliant artist

Telegraph

13-03-2025

The scope of what's on display, encompassing ephemera (film posters, Polaroids, copies of Interview magazine), as well as artworks, is impressive. A chronological approach spans the artist's career, from the (highly lucrative) commercial work, and homoerotic drawings of luscious youths (one licking his lips), which Warhol produced during the 1950s, to a late Self-Portrait (1986), in which his disembodied, ravaged face appears incandescent and red, against black, beneath a dishevelled 'fright wig', as if he were some all-seeing underworld god. Labels offer captivating nuggets about Warhol's biography and techniques.
Throughout, as in his famous series of pastel-coloured electric chairs, Warhol blends brutality with beauty, and gaudiness with subtlety. His pink head of a horned cow – an animal of totemic significance in Milton Keynes – is a witty Pop take on a traditional pastoral theme. The exhibition, which should appeal to schoolchildren and students, provides a lucid primer to a brilliant artist. There's value in that.
Does this 'Portrait of America' also foretell the land of Donald Trump? No doubt, with its violent imagery of paratrooper boots, a 'race riot', and snub-nosed pistols, as well as a corpulent yellow-and-black dollar sign, like a big bruised banana, or an alarmed cartoon character seemingly shedding dark streaks of sweat.
That said, the large, black-and-white Map of Eastern USSR Missile Bases (c 1985-86), made in response to President Ronald Reagan's 1983 'Evil Empire' speech, should, if the 47th US President is to be believed, no longer seem so menacing. Yeah, right.