Last Supper (Warhol)
Last Supper is a series of paintings created by the American artist Andy Warhol between 1985 and 1986. The paintings are based on the famed The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. Widely regarded as Warhol's final major body of work—and possibly his largest—the series has also been described as the most extensive group of religious artworks produced by any American artist.
Background
Pop artist Andy Warhol was raised Catholic and remained a devout practitioner throughout his life. Initially conceived as a commission for the gallerist Alexander Iolas, the Last Supper series reinterpreted Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper '''' through Warhol's characteristic strategies of appropriation, seriality, and repetition. Warhol exceeded the scope of the commission, producing nearly 100 variations on the theme between 1985 and 1986, primarily silkscreens and paintings, including the collaborative sculpture Ten Punching Bags with Jean-Michel Basquiat.The Last Supper series was first exhibited in January 1987 at the former refectory of the Palazzo delle Stelline in Milan, opposite Santa Maria delle Grazie, which houses da Vinci's mural The Last Supper. The exhibition presented a selection of 22 silkscreens that Warhol made in 1986. These works belong to a distinct group of fewer than 25 known silkscreen paintings derived from a black-and-white printed reproduction of The Last Supper, which Warhol cropped, stacked, overlaid, and rotated in his reinterpretations. Some of the iterations were on a 40-by-40-inch scale, presenting the image doubled and stacked in vivid colorways such as yellow, pink, green, blue, and camouflage. The Milan exhibition proved to be the final exhibition for both Warhol and Iolas. Warhol died shortly after the opening in February 1987, followed by Iolas' death in June 1987.
Central to the exhibition at the Palazzo delle Stelline was Camouflage Last Supper, a monumental work measuring more than 25 feet in length and overlaid with a military-style camouflage pattern. The painting is now held in the collection of the Menil Collection in Houston.
Critical response
The Last Supper series received a mixed but substantial critical response. In 1987, writing in Artforum, critic Jole De Sanna described it as Warhol's "most complex work that he produced in the years after his celebrated silkscreen prints of famous personalities." In 1999, art critic Anthony Haden-Guest wrote for Artnet that "Warhol's Christ seems wishy-washy, religiose—an icon nobody quite knows," questioning the role of Warhol's Catholic faith in the series and suggesting that his beliefs may have "damped down the energy" and removed "the dry sulfurous crackle of the best work," leaving the paintings "paradoxically… spiritless."By contrast, art historian Jane D. Dillenberger recounted how her research for her book The Religious Art of Andy Warhol began after she was "transfixed" by a photograph of Andy Warhol's studio showing a work based on Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. The image prompted Dillenberger to locate more work by Warhol inspired by the subject. While Warhol also produced works drawing on other religious imagery and texts, Dillenberger argues that it was in the Last Supper series that his "concealed religiosity" most fully emerged in his art. She cites curator Lynne Cooke's view that it was arguably Warhol's "greatest series."
In 2017, art historian Jessica Beck, former curator at the Andy Warhol Museum, proposed that the series can be interpreted as Warhol's artistic response to the AIDS crisis. The paintings are discussed in "Loving the Alien", the sixth and final episode of the 2022 Netflix docuseries The Andy Warhol Diaries.
Exhibitions
The Last Supper series was first shown in the exhibition Andy Warhol – Il Cenacolo at the Palazzo delle Stelline in Milan from January to March 1987.From June 1991 to July 2001, the Guggenheim Museum SoHo in New York hosted the significant, long-running exhibition Andy Warhol: The Last Supper.
In 2017, the Museo del Novecento in Milan held an exhibition of the works in honor of the thirtieth anniversary of their Milanese debut.
The Last Supper series was featured in the exhibition Andy Warhol: Revelation at the Brooklyn Museum in New York from November 2021 to June 2022. The exhibition examined Warhol's Catholic faith through a range of his works.
Art market
In May 2008, art dealer Jose Mugrabi purchased Detail of the Last Supper for $9.5 million at Christie's in New York. Measuring 6 by 35 feet, it features a black grid with Christ's face outlines in yellow.In May 2017, Last Supper a double image in pink and black, sold for $18.7 million at Christie's in New York.
In November 2017, Sixty Last Suppers sold for $60.9 million at Christie's in New York.
In May 2018, Last Supper, a double image in yellow and black, sold for $8.7 million at Phillips in New York.
In May 2025, The Last Supper, a double image in blue and black, sold for $7.07 million at Christie's in New York.
In November 2025, The Last Supper, a double image in yellow and black from the Edlis | Neeson Collection, achieved $8.1 million at Christie's in New York.