Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor, Grace Kelly, Ingrid Bergman or Isabelle Adjani: Andy Warhol portrayed them all. His repertoire of motifs included film stars as well as personalities from music, politics and society or icons from art history. Warhol, who became the most dazzling and probably most important representative of Pop Art, captured not only the colourful images of the consumer world and everyday culture, but also the celebrities of his time as they appeared in newspapers, magazines and on television and became a kind of 'commodity' themselves. The multi-award-winning French actress Isabelle Adjani was also featured on numerous magazine covers. After her role in "The Story of Adèle H." (1975) by François Truffaut, for which she received an Oscar nomination as the youngest actress to date, she increasingly achieved international fame and became a popular camera subject. Warhol’s work were based on press images as well as his own photographs, which he took of his prominent acquaintances and modified in the course of his artistic process. The printing technique and above all screen printing, which Warhol introduced as a legitimate means in art, was an important tool in his work, which he continuously developed further.
Although the surface as a design principle and the immediate recognisability of the depicted motif are of central importance in Warhol's work, his portrait of Isabelle Adjani reveals a complex structure: her face is depicted twice, which could be understood as an ironic commentary on the mass media production of star images, but also on the seriality in Warhol's work. In addition, the artist uses collage elements that visually fragment the actress's face, as if it could only be about a fragmented representation of her star persona. At the same time, this is precisely what makes the work particularly appealing and condenses the composition. With a harmonious choice of colours that alternates between red, blue and orange tones, Warhol not only highlights the beauty of his protagonist, but also visualises her vulnerability as it manifests itself in her tragic and sensitive roles.
