The Last Supper

The DaVinci Code spurs renewed interest in Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece and Andy Warhol’s own take on it.

By Kimberly Tarquinio

“Just as this tawdry, but mightily engaging novel has made the world take another look at this renaissance masterpiece, so too did Andy Warhol ask his viewers to look beyond the category of "masterpiece" and peer deeply into this work.”
-Thomas Sokolowski, Director of The Andy Warhol Museum

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This “rose-red” interpretation from Warhol’s Last Supper series hangs at The Andy Warhol Museum.

I“I thought that no single work of art would ever surpass the fame of Leonardo da Vinci's fresco of The Last Supper created in 1495-8 in the monastery attached to the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. And nothing has—until the work trumped itself with the publication of mystery-thriller novelist Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code,” says Thomas Sokolowski, Director of The Andy Warhol Museum. “Just as this tawdry, but mightily engaging novel has made the world take another look at this renaissance masterpiece, so too did Andy Warhol ask his viewers to look beyond the category of ‘masterpiece’ and peer deeply into this work.”

Created in late 1986, The Last Supper—an elaborate series of interpretations of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece—was Warhol’s last substantial work. (He died from complications
following surgery on February 22, 1987.) It was commissioned by the Milan bank Credito-Valtellinese where the group of paintings originally hung, just across the street from the church that houses Leonardo’s original. While Warhol’s Last Supper series has always been noteworthy for both its subject matter and timing, it has received renewed attention since the novel and recently released movie The DaVinci Code places Leonardo’s original work at the center of its plot.

“ Because the book has stirred up so much controversy surrounding the person sitting to the right of Jesus in Leonardo’s painting—is it an effeminate Apostle John or Mary Magdalene, who the book suggests was Jesus’ wife?—people want to see it for themselves,” says Colleen Russell Criste, The Warhol’s assistant director of external affairs. “Since Warhol’s work is based on Leonardo’s, we find people in the gallery discussing the story all the time.”

To produce his Last Supper series, Warhol appropriated Leonardo’s original image, copying it from a cheap commercial reproduction (as was his practice), and then creating almost 100 different interpretations. He reproduced it in its entirety as a double-silkscreened image washed in green, blue, yellow, and rose-red (it’s this version that hangs in The Andy Warhol Museum). He also created a black-light version, a camouflage version, and various other interpretations that incorporate commercial logos for products such as Dove soap and Wise potato chips. He even pulled out details from the painting and reproduced them in a series as well, as in Christ 112 Times.

Why so many different versions? Warhol often used high art, such as The Last Supper or Leonardo’s other exceptionally famous work, The Mona Lisa, as source material because the works are so familiar to the general public that they’ve become almost commonplace. Coloring the works, camouflaging them, even pulling them apart encourages viewers to look at these highly recognizable pieces in a whole new way.

“ With this prolific series, Warhol suggests that it doesn't matter whether or not one has seen the original work, but simply how well known the work has become through the many reproductions, both good and bad, that have been made from it,” says Sokolowski. “And remember, imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Even when it comes to high art.”

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