Consistent with his use of Polaroids as a form of “sketch” in creating painted portraits, he took a series of shots of the actress Farrah Fawcett – famed both as one of the original Charlie’s Angels and for her red one-piece bathing suit poster – and used them as the basis for two such portraits. This Polaroid thus typifies Andy Warhol’s portrait process of the 1970s and 1980s, when he photographed stars like Fawcett, Grace Jones, Blondie’s Debbie Harry, and Dolly Parton, with their bare shoulders serving as a nod to classical portraiture. Working from a Polaroid, Warhol sent the image to a photo lab to have it enlarged and transferred onto a sheet of acetate. Once a silkscreen was made from the acetate, Warhol and his assistants squeegeed ink through the screen onto a pre-painted canvas, using punches of color to highlight the glamour of his subjects. It was also part of Warhol’s practice to take dozens such Polaroids and while (perhaps) not originally intended to be viewed as finished works of art, they in fact reveal Warhol the photographer to a great degree, being a personal statement in a way that his other photographs do not. For example, where there is no artistry in his photobooth pictures (a not undesired aspect in that case), the Polaroids are genuinely Warhol behind the camera, making choices.
