Andy Warhol's "Flash - November 22, 1963" at The Delaware Art Museum

Delaware Art Museum

Wilmington,DE

302.571.9590

http://www.delart.mus.de.us

Andy Warhol's "Flash - November 22, 1963"

June 22 - September 5, 1999

John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, color screenprint on paper, 21 x 21 inches, Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., © 1999 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/ARS, New York

Andy Warhol's portfolio of 14 color screenprints made from images seen in newspapers and on television offer a stark perspective on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963, shocked the nation and the world. In his portfolio Flash - - - - November 22, 1963, pop artist Andy Warhol recounted the four days from the assassination of the President to his funeral on November 25, 1963. The artist's subject was not so much the events themselves as the continuous barrage of print and broadcast media coverage. Warhol was fascinated by the omnipresent emotional power of the media, later recalling that "It seemed like no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't get away from the thing."

In Flash, Warhol explored the traumatic public experience of the Kennedy assassination, making his prints from the same photographs shown incessantly on television and in newspapers. Americans knew these emotionally charged images all too well: the smiling President and First Lady during the Dallas motorcade just before the fatal shots were fired, Lee Harvey Oswald in the Dallas police station, Oswald's rifle gripped by a Dallas detective. The equally familiar words of the wire service reports echoed in the stark narrative accompanying the portfolio.

Text courtesy of Delaware Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Call 302-571-9590 to obtain information on current admission fees. Senior citizens and student discounts are offered. All public areas of the museum are accessible to persons with disabilities. The Delaware Art Museum is located at 2301 Kentmere Parkway, Wilmington, DE 19806.

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For further biographical information on Andy Warhol please see America's Distinguished Artists, a national registry of historic artists.

rev. 10/18/10

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This page was originally published in 1999 in Resource Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for more information.