14 DAY TRIAL // Just after news that the Kardashian Christmas card cost a whopping $250,000 (€184,121) hit the Internet, it seems that Kanye West is not looking to be outdone, and he's arranged for his lady to receive as a Christmas gift a portrait painted by Warhol.
That would be Monica Warhol, who is supposed to be a distant cousin of the artist.
The reason why Kanye hasn't contacted Andy Warhol, one of the original creators belonging to the pop art current, is because he's been dead since 1987. But that didn't stop the “Bound 2” singer to surprise Kim Kardashian with an original Warhol.
The image was obtained by InTouch Magazine and it bears the familiar Warhol effect of earlier portraits of Marilyn Monroe and Liz Taylor that have since become classics of art and fashion, and a source of inspiration to many.
Keeping in touch with the Andy Warhol feel, Kim has been first cartooned, then painted in loud colors: bright glowing pink, orange, yellow, red and blue and finally multiplied several times, in an effort to represent mass production (or so Warhol had envisioned it back in the day).
The final product looks strikingly similar to an Andy Warhol painting, which is probably why it cost as much as it did.
When asked about the painting Kim, artist Monica Warhol admitted: “She's an icon. She's famous for nothing. Andy would have loved her,” but then she added; “Kim is beautiful. She's so manufactured. She looks like a human Barbie.”
That might be the case, but she does look the part of a pop art icon, with her pretty face that is complemented by the effect in which her features are merely suggested by black lines and filled in with vivid colors.
That leaves the question of how much of a Warhol is this work of art, considering that Monica Warhol is a distant cousin of the late artist, in her own words. “My grandfather and Andy's father were brothers,” she says, but confesses he never had a big influence on her. “I never studied Andy. I never owned a book about him until about a year ago,” she explains.
Other portraits of Monica's that feature famous people include rapper Flo Rida, and singer Lenny Kravitz. Now Kanye can say he has an almost original Warhol of his soon-to-be-wife hanging in his living room.