Title: Letter to the World (The Kick) (FS II.389)
Medium: Screenprint on Lenox Museum Board
Year: 1986
Size: 36″ x 36″
Details: Edition of 100, 25 AP, 5 PP, 10 HC, 25 numbered in Roman numerals, signed and numbered in pencil on verso. Printed by Rupert Jasen Smith. Published by the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, Inc., New York. Portfolio of 3.
Letter to the World (The Kick) 389 is one of three screenprints in Andy Warhol’s Martha Graham series. This print depicts Martha Graham, the mother of modern dance, performing a fluent kick which was a part of her dramatic dance titled “Letter to the World.” The photograph is taken in 1940 by American photographer Barbara Morgan and became the most widely published photograph of Martha Graham. Warhol employs pink hues to Graham’s dress endorsing her femininity. His hand-drawn lines accentuate the unanchored movement of her body and dress and capture the fluidity of movement through a two-dimensional medium.
