Analysis Of Richard Pettibone's Double Jackie

The Art We View

The work Double Jackie by Richard Pettibone is no larger than three inches in height and four inches in length. This work depicts a double portrait of a woman printed with black ink on silver foil. The foil lays horizontal, and a line divides it down the middle. The woman’s face repeats on both the left and right side of the foil. Her face tilts downward to the left corner. In total size, the work and its frame take up about one square foot on the wall. Though the frame seems large, the Double Jackie’s thin black frame, wide strip of matt board, and black background serve to emphasize the miniscule work behind the glass. After considering each possibility on the designated list for this paper, I choose the Double Jackie. It

Kennedy’s wife. The original work by Warhol was made just a year after her husband’s assassination. In the book Richard Pettibone: A Retrospective it explains how, “Richard Pettibone has traced the sources of his early work to two exhibitions: the first, an Andy Warhol show at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles in 1962, and the second the first major Marcel Duchamp Retrospective at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1963.” When we look at Pettibone’s Double Jackie, we see how he was influenced by artists such as Warhol and Duchamp. It makes sense to see Pettibone copying another artist’s work, however, the Double Jackie is a much smaller part of the original. Jackie Kennedy was an American icon, and many people held her in high regard. Warhol’s pop art style turns Jackie into more of an abstraction. We don’t see subtle rendering or highlights that define her face. Instead we have two stark colors, silver and black, that define her face. Considering the fact that the original work by Warhol was created soon after the Kennedy Assassination, Jackie’s head gesture and expression describe the mood. Her face is slightly turned down. I interpret this gesture to reflect a somber mood. Even the dark ink adds to the down trodden feel of the