Mick Jagger by Andy Warhol Background & Meaning

Fixated on sex and celebrity, it was only a matter of time before Warhol captured rock legend and Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger’s likeness. He was consistently drawn to the representation of figures in the public eye, from his earliest screen prints ofElizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe to his later representations of Vladimir Lenin. One of Warhol’s most recognisable series of prints is that of the British rock star and lead singer of the Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger. This portfolio of 10 screen prints produced in 1975 is evocative of the celebrity status of subject and artist, both of whom were at their height of fame at this time.

Warhol met Jagger in 1963 during the Rolling Stones’ first tour to the United States, before the band reached its height of international popularity. The pair formed a friendship and professional relationship that became the foundation for several years of artistic collaboration. Most famously, Warhol was commissioned to design the iconic cover for the Rolling Stones 1971 album Sticky Fingers, an image that became renowned for its provocativeness and expressivity of 1970s rock and roll. By the mid ’70s Jagger’s fame was at its peak, leading Warhol to pursue the rock star as the subject of his next series of acclaimed screen prints. In the summer of 1975, whilst Jagger and his wife were renting Warhol’s home in Long Island, the artist took the opportunity to photograph Jagger, capturing a variety of expressive images that would form the basis of his next portfolio.

This process marked an important stylistic turning point in Warhol’s artistic career as he began to more frequently photograph his subjects, as opposed to relying on the pre-existing imagery used for his earlier portfolios. Warhol’s 1975 photographs of Jagger capture the rock star bare-chested in a range of emotive poses. These images were projected and used to create stylised line drawings, then layered with solid areas of colour to create intersecting lines and shapes, sometimes obscuring the singer’s face. Mick Jagger 143 and Mick Jagger 141 illustrate Warhol’s playful use of colour with opaque blocks of red and pink to highlight Jagger’s famous features and intensify his sultry gaze. Warhol’s collage technique is again symptomatic of this shift in aesthetic, creating more expressive imagery than the screen prints of his earlier career. This increasingly abstract style also demonstrates Warhol’s interest in the use of photography and collage to create a new conceptual framework, one that is comparable to the more non-representational art that was emerging in the 1970s.

Warhol’s Mick Jagger series creates a powerful statement about the commercialisation of celebrity, evident also in his decision for Jagger to sign each of the prints, thus increasing their value and enhancing their cultural significance. When Warhol died, Jagger commented in tribute: “The thing that he seemed to be able to do was to capture society, whatever part of it he wanted to portray, pretty accurately. That’s one of the things artists do, is show people later on what it was like.”

Andy Warhol did not create the famous Stones' 'tongue & lips' logo - that accolade belongs to John Pasche, who made the design after being commissioned by Mick Jagger. Jagger showed Pasche an image of the Hindu goddess Kali to use as inspiration for the 'hot lips' design. However, Warhol did little to dispel the myth that he was responsible for the logo, the confusion stemming from the fact that he created the artwork for the classic album cover of Sticky Fingers, the Stones' 1971 album.

One of the easiest and most cost-effective ways of buying work by Andy Warhol is by using us to reach a seller. MyArtBroker is a curated site, meaning we feature artists that our collectors say they want. You can find Andy Warhol art for sale here. You’ll need to create a free account to buy or sell with us.

If you're looking to sell art by Andy Warhol, click the link and we can help. We employ a number of techniques and practices in order to give a realistic and achievable valuation on any art listed on myartbroker.com. We analyse the demand for the work in question, take into consideration previous sales and auction valuations, we assess the current gallery valuation and monitor the current deals taking place via MyArtBroker every day. We regularly advise sellers on a price bracket for their artwork completely free of charge.

10 Facts About Warhol's Mick Jagger

The Rolling Stones' frontman, Mick Jagger, was famed for his sex appeal and raunchy public persona. Given Warhol's fascination with the pin-up celebrity, something which informed other iconic series like his Grace Kelly portfolio, it is unsurprising that his attention should turn to this rock and roll sex symbol of the 1970s. With his collaged application of colour, Warhol drew particular attention to Jagger's sultry gaze and voluptuous pouting lips.

Perhaps it was Warhol's preoccupation with the business of art which inspired him to have Jagger co-sign the 10 prints in this series. On each of the prints, Jagger's signature appears on the left, and Warhol's is on the right. This not only reveals the collaborative process between artist and sitter, but also the idea of the celebrity's signature adding value to an already covetable Warhol print.

These works were produced in the summer of 1975, when Jagger and his then-wife, Bianca, were renting Warhol's home in Long Island. During their stay, Warhol took the opportunity to photograph Jagger using his iconic Polaroid camera. These photographs of the bare-chested Jagger informed the basis of the portfolio, and give the works a jovial, intimate, and sometimes candid appeal.