Liz#5 - Andy Warhol

This portrait is called "Liz#5" (Elizabeth Taylor) and it was made by Andy Warhol in 1963. It was very successful. Everyone said it was wonderful and that he was in his best moment. Actually, he was the best portraitist of the superficial icons period, even though he was a restless and a complicated person. He was one of the most important artists of "Pop Art", which became extremely popular in the second half of the twentieth century.
To Andy Warhol, Elizabeth Taylor epitomized everything that so fascinated him. She was shockingly beautiful and devastatingly alluring, yet her life was full of both tragedy and scandal. Most importantly, her face was one of the most famous ones in the world.
To create this type of paintings, he would lay the screen twice, the first time to establish colour registration and the second after the hand painting was complete. This extra attention is particularly noticeable in Liz#5 in the slight doubling of her halo of black hair. The lines of her face are highlighted with carefully painted makeup. Her lips curve into a sultry smile, her glimmering violet eyes are accentuated by turquoise eye shadow and her skin is luminous.
This piece of art has got a lot of contrast because it goes from very light colours to very strong ones, but most of them are strong, for example, the red that he used for her lips.

By Sara Merino Fernández 3C