Rebel Without a Cause (James Dean), from Ads
Primary
Andy Warhol
(Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1928–New York, New York, 1987)
Printer
Rupert Jason Smith
NationalityAmerican, North America
Date1985
MediumScreenprint in nine colors from nine screens
DimensionsSheet: 38 × 38 in. (96.5 × 96.5 cm)
Credit LineBlanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Archer M. Huntington Museum Fund, 1985.58.7
Keywords
Rights Statement
Collection AreaPrints and Drawings
Object number1985.58.7/10
On View
Not on viewWarhol employs the visual structure of mass media communication to comment upon the cultural and economic forces underlying the circulation of words and images. In Rebel Without a Cause, the artist appropriates and transforms a James Dean poster selling Hollywood and a nostalgia for 1950s America to a Hong Kong audience. His overlay of caustic, neon colors heightens the visual potency of both the image and the ideograms, at the same time it underscores the youthful alienation and rugged individualism embodied by James Dean's film character and promoted as quintessentially American.
Exhibitions
