Andy Warhol published his series of “Shadows I–IV” in 1979 in collaboration with his master printer Rupert Jason Smith. The collection was exhibited in the same year at the Heiner Freidrich gallery in New York. Warhol believed these prints to be more decor, specifically “disco decor,” than high art, later using the pieces as a backdrop in a shoot for Interview magazine. Warhol produced the print using a sponge mop, resulting in thick lines and dunes in the paint’s texture.

Obsessed with celebrity, consumer culture, and mechanical reproduction, Pop artist Andy Warhol created some of the 20th century’s most iconic images. He drew widely from popular culture and everyday subject matter in his most famous works: his 32 Campbell's soup cans, Brillo pad box sculptures, and portraits of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor, for example. Rejecting the dominant painting and sculpting modes of his day, Warhol embraced silk-screen printmaking to achieve his characteristic hard edges and flat areas of color. The artist mentored Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat and continues to influence contemporary art around the world: His provocative successors include Richard Prince, Takashi Murakami, and Jeff Koons. Warhol has been the subject of exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, and Centre Pompidou, among other institutions. His works have sold for upwards of $100 million at auction.