DALLAS, TX.- John Wayne, Geronimo and Annie Oakley share the stage with ceremonial objects and a familiar five-cent coin in Andy Warhol’s Cowboys and Indians, a vivid portrait of the American West as both history and legend. Offered as a complete portfolio of ten screenprints with its original box, the 1986 suite leads Heritage Auctions’ October 22 Prints & Multiples Signature® Auction, a sale that pairs some of the artworld’s most recognizable names with discoveries for collectors at a range of price points.
“Warhol’s iconic Cowboys and Indians portfolio brings together so many of the collecting passions that define Heritage, from Western art and Hollywood to American history and even coins,” says Aviva Lehmann, Heritage’s Deputy Chairman of Fine Art. “Offering the complete portfolio gives us an extraordinary opportunity to connect collectors across those categories with Warhol’s bold vision of the American West.”
Across ten sheets measuring three feet square, Warhol turns his attention to the faces and symbols through which generations have imagined the frontier. John Wayne’s Hollywood cowboy appears alongside historical figures including Geronimo, Theodore Roosevelt and General Custer, while Mother and Child, Northwest Coast Mask and Kachina Dolls broaden the portfolio beyond famous personalities. In Indian Head Nickel, an everyday piece of currency becomes a monumental Pop image.
The portfolio’s John Wayne carries a particularly intriguing distinction: It is inscribed “Unique.” Hand-applied elements distinguish this impression from the standard edition, including a pink-to-blue gradient on Wayne’s gun and a red stripe on one tie of his bandana. These details add an individual flourish to one of the suite’s most immediately recognizable images, based on Wayne’s appearance in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
Warhol’s ability to transform a familiar face finds another expression in Albert Einstein, from his 1980 series Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century. Photographic detail, blocks of color and looping lines overlap across the scientist’s face, creating a portrait that shifts between likeness and abstraction. Also offered is a large 1980 screenprint from Shoes, its colors accented with diamond dust.
Three works from the 1985 Ads series, offered separately, extend Warhol’s fascination with celebrity and commerce: Volkswagen, Van Heusen (Ronald Reagan) and Blackglama (Judy Garland). Together, they bring advertising and star power into the same bright visual world as the Western legends of Cowboys and Indians.
“April’s record-setting Hockney result underscored Heritage’s growing strength in Modern and Contemporary prints, and we’re building on that momentum with what I believe is our finest, most blue-chip prints auction in recent years,” Lehmann says. “From Warhol’s complete Cowboys and Indians portfolio to exceptional works by Twombly, Lichtenstein, Stella, Haring, Picasso and Hockney, this sale brings together the names collectors aspire to own with the quality and range that make this category so exciting.”
Among the rarities is Cy Twombly’s Roman Notes VI, a 1970 offset lithograph in which delicate blue lines race and loop across a quiet ground. Suggesting handwriting without resolving into words, the composition draws on the cyclical gestures of Twombly’s celebrated “blackboard” works. Its title evokes the city where he settled in 1957, surrounded by ancient inscriptions and contemporary graffiti. The signed impression is numbered 62 from an edition of 100.
Picasso offers a different kind of invitation. A playful, accessible selection of Madoura ceramics introduces Session I, including Petit buste de femme, a 1964 red earthenware work produced at Madoura Pottery in Vallauris. Strong linocuts complement the ceramics, among them the signed 1962 Grand tête de femme au chapeau, an impression from an edition of 50 printed by Hidalgo Arnéra. The group gives collectors several ways to explore Picasso’s inventiveness across materials.
A rare color print by Tamara de Lempicka, Femme à la Mandoline, 1933, adds another distinctive voice. Executed in aquatint and roulette on chine collé, the work is signed and numbered from an edition of 100.
Charles White’s Love Letter I, 1971, brings a more intimate emotional register. Angela Davis’s face emerges along the upper edge of a dark, densely worked composition, with two violet roses below. Created during her imprisonment while awaiting trial, the image joins a portrait of an individual with an expression of solidarity. The signed and dated lithograph is one of an edition of just 25.
A strong selection of Frank Stella prints from the 1970s and 1980s includes Sinjerli Variations Squared with Colored Grounds, a complete six-work portfolio from 1981. Each lithograph and screenprint is signed and dated, offering collectors the opportunity to acquire the entire suite.
A variety of Joan Miró’s editions span a broad range of price points and printmaking approaches, led by the imposing Gargantua, 1977. Measuring more than five feet tall, the work combines etching, aquatint and carborundum to produce rich color, deep blacks and a pronounced texture. Broad forms and bursts of red, blue and yellow summon a fantastical presence suited to its title, borrowed from Rabelais’s giant. Elsewhere, Interieur et nuit, a lithograph on wallpaper, offers an unexpected encounter with Miró’s graphic imagination.
The auction’s breadth continues through prints by Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Sam Francis, Pierre Soulages and Jamie Nares, complementing its Pop offerings with a rich selection of gestural and abstract work.
“This is a beautiful prints auction with many accessible works,” says Rebecca Lax, Heritage’s Consignment Director for Prints and Multiples based in NYC. “It presents Pop Art boldly and offers many mid-career artist editions that deserve equal attention.”
Heritage’s October 22 Prints & Multiples Signature® Auction will take place in two sessions. Session I is a live auction; Session II is online only. The auctioneer will announce Session II at the conclusion of Session I.
