Muhammad Ali, from the Muhammad Ali portfolio
1978
One critic of the 1970s observed that Warhol's portraits are "essentially cosmetic, a skin-deep treatment of surfaces rather than a probing of the individual's character." Certainly, this portrait of Muhammad Ali is a commemorative icon, the artist transforming a stock news photo with color and scale but not revealing any emotional connection to the subject. Some found Warhol's indifference had to believe, but in his 1975 book "the Philosophy of Andy Warhol from a to b and back again", Warhol explains how far he had allowed (or parodied) the desensitizing engendered by modern life:
"When I got my first TV set, I stopped caring so much about having close relationships with other people...I started an affair with my television that has continued to the present, when I play around with as many as four at a time. But I didn't get married until 1964 when I got my first tape recorder. My wife...the acquisition of my tape recorder really finished what emotional life I have had, but I was glad to see it go."
Screenprint on Strathmore Bristol paper
40 x 30 in. (101.6 x 76.2 cm)
Gift of the American Art Foundation
79.90
Provenance: Pace Gallery, New York City; Gift of the American Art Foundation, December 3, 1979
