Walking around the brilliant and intensely quiet Andy Warhol exhibition in the Tate Modern recently got me wondering if the pop artist had ever produced a cinema poster. Warhol produced his own films and numerous portraits of famous actors (Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor can be seen in the Tate exhibition), so why not a movie poster(s)? Exiting through the gift shop I found a book – Andy Warhol: The Complete Commissioned Posters 1964-1987 by Paul Marechal – that answered my question.

The book indexes fifty-two posters produced by Warhol to promote a product or event, raise funds or support a cause. Warhol was commissioned to design only two cinema posters for other directors. The first was a series of posters for Robert Werner Fassbinder’s film Querelle (1982) – a French movie set in a bordello. In 1985 he produced a poster for Irvin’s film The Turtle Diary (1985), a film starting Glenda Jackson, Ben Kingsley and Michael Gambon where the characters conspire to free a bale of turtles from captivity.

Perhaps the most famous film poster for a movie Warhol is associated with is the one for Chelsea Girls (1966). Directed by Warhol, the poster designed by Alan Aldridge captures the eroticism of the film which follows the lives of several young women living in the Chelsea Hotel in New York in the 1960s. An original copy of the film poster auctioned at Christies in 2011 fetched £4,375.

Share This Article

Cinema Poster Grading System
3 Yellow Grail Posters... and 3 more affordable alternatives

Leave a Reply