Electric Chair

Andy Warhol American
1971
Not on view
Warhol’s Electric Chair reiterates 10 times in 10 different, often lurid hues the same 1953 press photograph of the chamber at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in New York where Julius and Ethel Rosenberg would soon be executed. Warhol famously endorsed repetition as both an artistic strategy and a personal philosophy: "I like things to be exactly the same over and over again," he once said. Despite his cool, neutral delivery, Warhol’s use of repetition is charged with compulsive energy, especially when he replicates scenes of trauma, violence, and disaster, as he does here.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Electric Chair
  • Artist: Andy Warhol (American, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1928–1987 New York)
  • Printer: Silkprint Kettner, Zurich
  • Publisher: Bruno Bischofberger
  • Date: 1971
  • Medium: Screenprint from a portfolio of ten
  • Dimensions: Sheet: 35 1/2 in. × 48 in. (90.2 × 121.9 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: Gift of Robert Meltzer, 1972
  • Object Number: 1972.735.7
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

Research Resources

The Met provides unparalleled resources for research and welcomes an international community of students and scholars. The Met's Open Access API is where creators and researchers can connect to the The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.

To request images under copyright and other restrictions, please use this Image Request form.

Feedback

We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.