Andy Warhol – Satyric Festival Song (from Martha Graham) 1986 Second version

Satyric Festival Song (from Martha Graham)

1986 — second unique colour variant

Artist: Andy Warhol
Title: Satyric Festival Song (from Martha Graham)
Year: 1986
Medium: Screenprint in colours on Lenox Museum Board
Sheet & Image Size: 912 × 912 mm (approx. 36 × 36 in)
Designation: Unsigned and unnumbered proof — presumably unique in this colour variation
Authentication: Estate of Andy Warhol inkstamp; Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board inkstamp; annotated "144A UT.016" in pencil on reverse
Publisher: Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, Inc.
Reference: Feldman & Schellmann II.387
Type: Unique colour variant proof — aside from standard edition of 100 + 25 Artist's Proofs

Description

This impression of Satyric Festival Song (1986) is the second known unique colour variant proof from the Martha Graham portfolio — distinguished from the companion proof (annotated "144A UT.008") by its own distinct chromatic proposition and by its separate inventory number "144A UT.016" in the Andy Warhol Foundation's records. Together, the two proofs establish that Warhol — or the printing process under his direction — explored at least two colour variations before fixing the standard edition, and that the Foundation preserved and authenticated both as independent objects of significance.

The existence of two separately inventoried unique proofs of the same plate — each in a distinct colourway, each authenticated by both the Estate and the Authentication Board, each assigned its own inventory number — transforms what might have seemed like a working document into a deliberate series of chromatic investigations: the screenprint process used not merely to produce an edition but to think through the possibilities of a composition, with each proof a position in an argument about colour that the standard edition ultimately resolved in a specific direction.

Satyric Festival Song takes its title from one of Martha Graham's most celebrated choreographic works — a piece about the Dionysian, the ecstatic, the release of the body — and the existence of multiple colour variants honours that spirit of exploration and possibility. Warhol's engagement with Graham was among the last major portrait projects of his career, and the printing sessions that produced the Martha Graham portfolio were among the final sustained graphic investigations of his life. These proofs are therefore not merely rare impressions but historical documents of a specific creative moment.

The authentication record is complete: the Estate of Andy Warhol inkstamp, the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board inkstamp, and inventory annotation "144A UT.016" on the reverse. Referenced as Feldman & Schellmann II.387.

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