Andy Warhol, Northwest Coast Mask screenprint 1986 is Warhol’s take on the ceremonial mask from the cultures of the Northwest Coast. Warhol chose to keep the colors in this work true to the colors commonly used in these masks, blue and red in particular. The use of a contrasting yellow creates a sense of three-dimensionality, drawing out the facial features of the mask.

If Cowboys and Indians can be considered Warhol’s explorations of the reality and fiction of the American West, Andy Warhol's Northwest Coast Mask shows an awareness of the reality of Native American culture. The tradition of ceremonial masks in the Northwest Coast culture area, stretching along the Pacific Coast north of California, has existed for several thousand years. Andy Warhol’s Northwest Coast Mask is seen in relation to works such as Kachina Dolls and Plains Indian Shield. All of these objects could be seen to represent a Native American reality, but each is representative of a different Native American culture. By including them all in the same series, Warhol calls into question the monolithic identity given to the diversity of Native Americans in romanticized notions of the American West.

Created in 1986, Andy Warhol’s Northwest Coast Mask is a color screenprint on Lenox Museum Board and is hand signed in the lower right corner in pencil. It is a unique work of an edition of 250, published by Gaultney, Klineman Art Inc., New York and printed by Rupert Jason Smith, New York.

Andy Warhol Cowboys and Indians Series:

Andy Warhol’s Cowboys and Indians series of 1986 consists of ten prints each depicting their own respective subject—John Wayne, Annie Oakley, Kachina Dolls, Geronimo, Buffalo Nickel, Tonto, Theodore Roosevelt, General George Custer, Plains Indian Shield, and Northwest Coast Mask. Featuring images of famous American Western icons, Warhol’s series explores the relationship between Native Americans and Hollywood's portrayal of them in Western films. Warhol, being fascinated with celebrity culture, uses these famous figures to examine ways in which fame and popular culture intersect with history and myth.

The Cowboys and Indians series was also created during a time at which Warhol was exploring his own Native American heritage. His mother was of Ruthenian and Carpatho-Rusyn descent, but Warhol claimed that his father was of Slovakian and Native American ancestry.

Overall, the Cowboys and Indians series reflects Warhol's interest in American culture and history, as well as his fascination with celebrity and the intersection of art and commerce.

This screenprint is part of a portfolio of works Warhol created in 1986 titled Cowboys and Indians. Other works in the Cowboys and Indians Series include General Custer, Sitting Bull, Kachina Dolls, Geronimo, Annie Oakley, War Bonnet Indian, Buffalo Nickel, Action Picture, Northwest Coast Mask, Plains Indians Shield, Mother and Child, Indian Head Nickel, and Teddy Roosevelt.

Catalogue Raisonné & COA:

Andy Warhol, Northwest Coast Mask, from the Cowboys and Indians Series, 1986 is fully documented and referenced in the below catalogue raisonnés and texts (copies will be enclosed as added documentation with the invoices that will accompany the sale of the work).

1. Feldman, Frayda and Jörg Schellmann. Andy Warhol Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné 1962 – 1987, 4^th Ed. New York: Distributed Art Publishers, Inc., 2003.

2. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany this artwork.

About the Framing:

Andy Warhol, Northwest Coast Mask is framed to museum-grade, conservation standards, artist name title, year is presented in a complementary moulding and finished with silk-wrapped mats and optical grade Plexiglas.