At the Loeb Art Center of Vassar College are four silkscreens by Andy Warhol. (Three are in the "Project Room," where professors choose artworks for their students to examine.) One, very prominent in the "Recent Acquisitions: Works on Paper" show, is a purple cow. Unexpectedly, it holds its own against Rembrandt and Matisse. Warhol’s greatest works have a finality, as if they were the last works of art ever made. The cow looks out at us blandly; in a sense, she doesn’t look at all — she’s looked at, rather. The purple cow is glamorous, radiant. Warhol discovered how to transform an animal into a "superstar." That’s what Andy was after — works of art that were also "stars."
Speaking of which, Warhol’s best piece at the Loeb is a double Jackie Kennedy, wearing a widow’s veil, silkscreened onto violet. (Jackie herself is only one color — black.) Why the doubleness? I’m not sure, but the image has a tragic inevitability. After the Kennedy assassination, we saw Jackie on TV, sometimes on two TVs at once, perhaps in a barbershop or a bar. She began to multiply, the way grief itself multiplies. Warhol catches her multiplication at the beginning, when she is twins. (Later, he would make a more famous Jackie painting with 16 images.) The two Jackies could be the "private" woman and the "public" one — but the work is not that literal. The picture’s threat is that we ourselves are also beginning to multiply, in 1963.
The other two pieces in the show are lousy — late works with a Disney theme. One is Mickey Mouse, on a background of diamond dust. The other is Donald Duck. Warhol outlived his talent, except for a few self-ambushes. I’ve seen works of his up to the very end — 1987 — that are silent wonders. (I’m thinking of his camouflage paintings, and the silkscreened abstract expressionist works.) But the Mickey Mouse is painful to watch. Warhol thinks he’s insulting his audience, but he is actually ridiculing himself. Andy’s life had become sprinkled with diamond dust.