Warhol Polaroids
In 1970, Andy Warhol purchased a Polaroid Big Shot camera, a clunky piece of machinery that had a fixed focal length of just three feet. With his characteristic voracity, he turned his new toy on everyone, from the famous – Muhammad Ali, Georgia O’Keeffe, Blondie, and seen here Grace Jones and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – to the completely anonymous. Most of Warhol’s Polaroids were used as studies for eventual silk-screen portraits. The artist would cover his subjects’ faces in white kabuki-like makeup to conceal wrinkles and blemishes. He intended his Polaroids to serve as time-capsule glimpses of a specific era—namely, the ‘70s and early ‘80s when he was at the height of his fame.