Unidentified Woman

© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Unidentified Woman

Currently not on view

Unidentified Woman,

1980

Andy Warhol, 1928–1987; born Pittsburgh, PA; died New York, NY; active New York
2008-200
Warhol spent the 1970s and ’80s taking thousands of Polaroid portraits on his Big Shot camera. His portrait sittings were routine: the sitter was invited to a lunch gathering of film, fashion, art, and society guests. Once the guests had left, Warhol had his female sitter apply white makeup to her face and chest and replace her top with a cotton wrap. Next, he would pose her head and shoulders in front of a white wall. Warhol tried to make all his subjects—celebrities and friends alike—look like movie stars. These thousands of portraits served as photographic image sources for Warhol’s silkscreens. They also remind us of photography’s power to fictionalize, idealize, and manufacture identity.

Information

Title
Unidentified Woman
Dates

1980

Maker
Andy Warhol
Medium
Polaroid
Dimensions
image: 9.5 x 7.3 cm. (3 3/4 x 2 7/8 in.) sheet: 11.4 x 8.6 cm. (4 1/2 x 3 3/8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
Object Number
2008-200
Place Made

North America, United States, New York, Manhattan, New York

Marks/Labels/Seals
Blindstamp below image, lower right: © ANDY WARHOL
Culture
American
Type
internal dye diffusion transfer process, photographs, color photographs
Techniques
internal dye diffusion transfer process
Subject
figures (representations), cosmetics, lipsticks, portraits, red, brown, women, pale orange yellow, white (color), black

IIIF manifest

The International Image Interoperability Framework, or IIIF, is an open standard for delivering high-quality, attributed digital objects online at scale. Visit iiif.io to learn more.

Open API URL

Our API is generally designed to provide programmatic access to the Museum's collections data for applications that require regular updates and/or the ability to dynamically query and filter the data via the endpoints provided.

Share your feedback with us

The Museum regularly researches its objects and their collecting histories, updating its records to reflect new information. We also strive to catalogue works of art using language that is consistent with how people, subjects, artists, and cultures describe themselves. As this effort is ongoing, the Museum’s records may be incomplete or contain terms that are no longer acceptable. We welcome your feedback, questions, and additional information that you feel may be useful to us. Email us at collectionsinfo@princeton.edu.

Explore More

Celebrating American Art at Princeton

Princeton Collects

Mosaic Restaurant