EDUALC

A rare trial proof copy of Andy Warhol’s 1985 portrait of The Queen is to be auctioned at Bonhams Print Sale in London on 11 July. It is estimated at $93,000. The signed and numbered print, Queen Elizabeth II, is from the Reigning Queens series which also includes the Queens of Denmark, the Netherlands and Swaziland. It was his last print-portrait before his untimely death in 1987. It is based on a portrait of Queen Elizabeth painted in 1977 to mark her Silver Jubilee. Given Warhol’s fascination with transvestites of whom he painted a series in the 1970s called Drag Queens or Ladies and Gentleman, the Reigning Queens title is clearly intended as a pun on Raging Queens. The two series also share the same bright, almost garish palettes. As always with Warhol, however, the flippancy masks a more serious point about the nature of celebrity and image in the modern world. Writing of Warhol and his portrait of the Queen in the latest edition of Bonhams Magazine