A Boy for Meg

1962

Andy Warhol

Artist, American, 1928 - 1987

This vertical painting imitates the front page of a newspaper, with mostly black text in different sizes against a white background. The bottom two-thirds is dominated by a black and white photograph of a woman and three lines of a single, large headline. To our left, the narrow, vertical portrait shows a smiling woman looking off to our left from the corners of her eyes. She has prominent, arching eyebrows and wears a white, possibly fuzzy hat over dark hair. The background behind her is charcoal gray. The largest text on the page fills the space next to her, to our right. It reads, “A BOY FOR MEG” in slanted letters. Under her portrait is the caption, “See Page 3” in small text. Moving to the top third of the painting: at the top left is a square portrait showing just the face of a man wearing a fedora, done in sky and royal blue. The caption under the portrait reads, “In the Magazine.” The headline that runs next to it has white text against ocean blue, and it reads, “Sinatra and his ‘Rat Pack’ TODAY: The Leader Himself (Con’t).” In the horizontal zone beneath the blue banner and above the portrait and headline about Meg, the title of the newspaper is the “New York Post.” To the left, a box reads, “WEATHER Fog tonight. in the 60s. Tomorrow: cloudy and warm, chance of showers.” In a box under the newspaper name, it reads, “NEW YORK, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1961 10 Cents.” A secondary headline, to our right, reads, “LATEST STOCK PRICES Pages 85-88.”
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On View

NGA, East Building, EU-407-D, S

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil and egg emulsion on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Burton Tremaine

  • Dimensions

    overall: 182.9 x 132.1 cm (72 x 52 in.)
    framed: 184.5 x 133.7 cm (72 5/8 x 52 5/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1971.87.11

  • Copyright

    (C) 2011 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Acquired 1962 from the artist by Burton G. [1902-1991] and Emily Hall [1908-1987] Tremaine, Madison, Connecticut; International Art Foundation, New York, by 1969; gift 1971 to NGA.[1]
[1] Provenance from 1981 letter to Warhol catalogue raisonné project from NGA's Department of Twentieth-Century Art.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1967

  • Loan for display with permanent collection, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, 1967.

1969

  • Pop Art Redefined, Hayward Gallery, London, 1969, no. 148, pl. 83.

1971

  • Loan for display with permanent collection, Detroit Institute of Arts, at least 1971-1976.

1985

  • Loan for display with permanent collection, The Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, 1985-1987.

1987

  • Made in U.S.A.: An Americanization in Modern Art, the '50s & '60s, University Art Museum, Berkeley, California; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, 1987, fig. 114.

1989

  • Andy Warhol: A Retrospective, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago, 1989, no. 134, repro.

1994

  • Neo-Dada: Redefining Art, 1958-62, Scottsdale Center for the Arts, Arizona; The Equitable Gallery, New York, 1994-1995, fig. 24 (not shown at last three venues).

1998

  • Andy Warhol: A Factory, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg; Kunsthalle Wien; Palais des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles, Brussels, 1998-2000, no. 106, repro. (not shown at final three venues: Museo Guggenheim, Bilbao; Fundaçao Serralves, Porto; Guggenheim Museum, New York)

2007

  • Loan to Commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of Andy Warhol's Death, The Andy Warhol Museum, 2007, no catalogue.

2011

  • Warhol: Headlines, National Gallery of Art, Washington; Museum fur Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main; Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, 2011-2013, no. 14, repro.

2012

  • Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, 2012-2013, no. 5 (shown only in Pittsburgh).

2018

  • Andy Warhol – From A to B and Back Again, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Art Institute of Chicago, 2018-2020 (shown only in San Francisco and Chicago).

Bibliography

1991

  • Rorimer, Anne. "The Date Paintings of On Kawara." Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 17, no. 2 (1991): 130-131, fig. 11.

1992

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 373, repro.

  • National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 271, repro.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 454, no. 383, color repro.

2011

  • Rosenberg, Bonnie. "Andy Makes the News: Washington's Warhol Double Bill." The Art Newspaper 20, no. 227 (September 2011): 71, color repro.

  • Suddath, Claire, Feifei Sun and Kayla Webley. "The Culture: Pop Chart." Time 178, no. 14: 55, color repro.

2015

  • Donovan, Molly, Jay Krueger, Suzanne Quillen Lomax, and Christopher Maines. "Andy Warhol's Early Paint Mediums." Facture: conservation, science, art history 2 (2015): 158-168, fig. 2.

Inscriptions

upper left reverse, on the fabric in black marker: ANDY WARHOL/62; upper left reverse, on the stretcher in black marker: ANDY WARHOL 62

Wikidata ID

Q20195684

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