Andy Warhol, “The Big C 699” (1985), Folded Card for First Posthumous Exhibition Recent Works, Leo Castelli Gallery, 1987

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Offset print, 9″ x 5″ (folded); 18″ x 5″ (open)

The exhibition of Warhol’s “Recent Work” was held only months after the artist’s death (in February 1987), and featured seven of his last paintings. The Last Supper iconography in “The Big C 699” (reproduced on the announcement) seems to express intimations of mortality, though Warhol isn’t known to have been ailing at the time it was made.

Warhol’s death was strongly felt by many of the younger artists who tried to carry his mantle, including Jean-Michel Basquiat.

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Gatefold
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Reverse detail)
Reverse (detail)
Andy Warhol

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Andy Warhol Ephemera, Part 2: Posthumous Cards, Posters (after Feb. 22, 1987)

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This collection features some of the announcement cards, posters and publications from after the artist’s death on February 22, 1987. Posthumous ephemera have an interesting story to tell. As successful as Warhol was in life, the full range of his creativity and prodigious production only emerged after his death.

40 Top Art Events of the Downtown Era: A Timeline, 1974–1992

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The Downtown Era began in the 1970s, when aspiring artists of the baby-boomer generation arrived in New York. Over the next two decades, they would radically change the art world, opening it up to new forms of media, new modes of exhibiting art, and new social perspectives.