By: Victoria Mathis
Andy Warhol is known and admired so much for his unique way of interpreting iconic celebrities and even consumer items. Warhol was a constant mirror of the society in which he lived. He used the iconography of his generation to challenge what society thought of those icons and to push people to think about these icons outside of their normal representation.
Warhol’s piece, Lillian Carter 1977, which is displayed in the Brenau Downtown Center’s Manhattan Gallery, is a very colorful portrait of President Jimmy Carter’s mother. This piece features a screen printed black and white photograph of Lillian Carter that uses a color blocking method and black outlines to emphasize certain features on Lillian’s face and clothing.
Warhol chose specific features on Lillian’s face like many other of his portraits of celebrities to accentuate their features that had become iconic with them. In his works, Warhol often paid very close attention to a person’s features. By studying the iconic features of celebrities, he found a deeper connection with what exactly the public saw as icons. The youthful and playful colors in his Lillian Carter print allow Lillian to be seen in a much more informal manner than the political light in which she was usually seen.
