Little Electric Chair (blue)

Little Electric Chair (blue), 1964–65

Unsigned
Unmounted and unframed
Acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen
28" × 37" approx. (unstretched sheet)

This work belongs to Andy Warhol’s Electric Chair imagery within the Death and Disaster series, in which the artist explored mortality, repetition, and the role of mass media in shaping perceptions of violence and tragedy.

Unlike his more commercially recognized imagery, the Electric Chair works emphasize absence and stillness, transforming a subject of institutional death into a repeated, mediated form.

In this blue iteration, the restrained palette introduces a sense of calm that heightens the tension between aesthetic surface and underlying subject matter. The inclusion of the word “Silence” further underscores Warhol’s interest in desensitization and media saturation.

The imagery derives from press photographs of the execution chamber at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, historically associated with the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in the 1950s.

Through silkscreen repetition, Warhol abstracts and flattens these source images, reflecting his broader investigation into how media reproduces and distances violent imagery from emotional response.