4 photographs, gelatin silver print on paper and thread
Text and Language
Pop Art and its Legacy
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
ARTIST ROOMS
National Heritage Memorial Fund
Art Fund
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/andy-warhol-2121" aria-label="More by Andy Warhol" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Andy Warhol</a>
Sunday Brunch
ARTIST ROOMS
Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
advertising
breakfast
eating and drinking
emotions, concepts and ideas
formal qualities
leisure and pastimes
lifestyle and culture
notice
objects
photographic
popular culture
reading, writing, printed matter
repetition
society
<p>This work consists of four identical black and white photographs stitched together with thread into a two by two grid. Trails of thread are left hanging at the ends of the joins of the images. The photograph depicts a printed sign for ‘Sunday Brunch’, framed and hung from a wooden beam above an area covered in dark shadow. The sign indicates that at this diner or restaurant Sunday brunch costs $7.95 and includes ‘ribs, eggs, grits, hot biscuits, champagne, mimosa, Bloody Mary, Western dance instruction...’. The photograph was shot at an angle so that the sign and brickwork do not appear straight but lean downwards to the right. In the bottom left of the photograph, in the obscured area, the word ‘Open’ suggests that underneath the sign is an entrance, although a door cannot be seen.</p>
paper unique 4 photographs gelatin silver print thread
12 March 2009 – 8 November 2009
2009-11-08
12 March 2009 – 8 November 2009
2009-11-08
2009-03-12
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Edinburgh, UK)
http://www.nationalgalleries.org/
2009-03-12
ARTIST ROOMS Andy Warhol
Collection based display
27 March 2011 – 26 June 2011
2011-06-26
27 March 2011 – 26 June 2011
2011-06-26
2011-03-27
John Hansard Gallery (Southampton, UK)
http://www.soton.ac.uk/~hansard/
2011-03-27
ARTIST ROOMS 2011: Andy Warhol
Loan-out
24 September 2011 – 26 February 2012
2012-02-26
24 September 2011 – 26 February 2012
2012-02-26
2011-09-24
De La Warr Pavilion (Bexhill on Sea, UK)
http://www.dlwp.com/
2011-09-24
ARTIST ROOMS 2011: Andy Warhol
Loan-out
2 June 2012 – 13 January 2013
2013-01-13
2 June 2012 – 13 January 2013
2013-01-13
2012-06-02
Ferens Art Gallery (Hull, UK)
http://www.hullcc.gov.uk/museumcollections
2012-06-02
ARTIST ROOMS 2012: Warhol
Loan-out
8 February 2013 – 28 April 2013
2013-04-28
8 February 2013 – 28 April 2013
2013-04-28
2013-02-08
The MAC: Metropolitan Arts Centre (Belfast, UK)
2013-02-08
ARTIST ROOMS 2013: Andy Warhol
Loan-out
Sunday Brunch
object: 539 × 694 mm
frame: 792 × 779 × 26 mm
<a href="/search?gid=999999788" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">ARTIST ROOMS</a>
Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the <a href="/search?gid=999999967" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">National Heritage Memorial Fund</a> and the <a href="/search?gid=999999968" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Art Fund</a> 2008
<div class="text">
<p>This work consists of four identical black and white photographs stitched together with thread into a two by two grid. Trails of thread are left hanging at the ends of the joins of the images. The photograph depicts a printed sign for ‘Sunday Brunch’, framed and hung from a wooden beam above an area covered in dark shadow. The sign indicates that at this diner or restaurant Sunday brunch costs $7.95 and includes ‘ribs, eggs, grits, hot biscuits, champagne, mimosa, Bloody Mary, Western dance instruction...’. The photograph was shot at an angle so that the sign and brickwork do not appear straight but lean downwards to the right. In the bottom left of the photograph, in the obscured area, the word ‘Open’ suggests that underneath the sign is an entrance, although a door cannot be seen.</p>
<p>Between 1982 and 1987 Andy Warhol made over five hundred unique stitched photograph works each comprising several prints of the same image arranged into a grid. The images used as the basis for the stitched photographs were all taken by Warhol, who took photographs almost every day from 1976 onwards using several 35 mm cameras. When he began making the stitched photograph works, Warhol selected images from among the thousands he had amassed. The stitched photograph works feature a broad array of subjects including pictures of still lifes, celebrities, buildings and monuments. <i>Sunday Brunch</i> is one of a number of Warhol’s stitched photograph works featuring signs, which range from the handwritten, such as <i>Cough</i> 1986 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/warhol-cough-ar00292" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00292</span></a>), to the more formal or commercial, such as <i>No Parking</i> 1986 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/warhol-no-parking-ar00296" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00296</span></a>).</p>
<p>Food is a recurrent subject in the work of Andy Warhol. His early illustration work includes images such as <i>Ice Cream Dessert</i> 1959 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/warhol-ice-cream-dessert-ar00255" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00255</span></a>) while the artist is perhaps best known for his screenprints of cheap and basic food items including Campbell’s soup cans and bottles of Coca Cola. In addition to producing the <i>Velvet Underground and Nico</i> album (1967), he also created its cover art: an image of a banana that, on the original vinyl pressing, could be ‘peeled’. He continued to produce images of food and drink throughout the latter years of his career, for instance, his <i>Perrier</i> screenprints (such as Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/warhol-perrier-ar00405" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00405</span></a>, made in 1983), or his paintings based on signs, including <i>Hamburger</i> 1985–6 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/warhol-hamburger-ar00233" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00233</span></a>). Warhol’s own favourite food was candy. As Warhol’s biographer Wayne Koestenbaum writes:</p>
<p class="cttext">
</p><blockquote>his mother gave him candy bars as reward for every page completed in a colouring book. As an adult, he continued to dote on sweets. Tom Wolfe reports Andy refusing food at society dinner parties and declaring, “Oh, I only eat candy”; after he was shot in 1968, and could, for a time, only tolerate liquids, he would retreat to the restaurant Serendipity 3 on East Sixtieth Street and nurse a Frozen Hot Chocolate.</blockquote>
<blockquote>(Koestenbaum 2001, p.17.)</blockquote>
<p>Warhol’s intention in making this particular work is not known. As art historian William Ganis notes, many of the images selected by Warhol and his assistant Christopher Makos for the stitched photograph works were chosen primarily for their formal, graphic qualities (Ganis 2004, pp.26–7). The repetition of the photograph in this work might be said to reflect the ubiquity of the American diner, the widespread availability of basic food staples across the United States, or even the repetitive nature of working in a diner. The appeal to Warhol may have been in the mixture of somewhat incongruous elements: food, alcohol, and the oddly specific ‘Western dance instruction’. Alternatively, this work could be said to relate to Warhol’s fascination with money: his confounding of the distinction between art and business, his numerous works that feature currency or include prices as part of their content, and his routine documenting in his diaries of his daily expenditures.</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Pat Hackett (ed.), <i>The Andy Warhol Diaries</i>, London 1989.<br/>Wayne Koestenbaum, <i>Andy Warhol</i>, London 2001.<br/>William V. Ganis, <i>Andy Warhol’s Serial Photography</i>, Cambridge 2004.</p>
<p>Glyn Davis<br/>University of Edinburgh<br/>December 2013</p>
<p>
<i>The University of Edinburgh is a research partner of ARTIST ROOMS</i>.</p>
</div>

Summary
2014-06-13T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<p>Following the gift of a camera in 1976, Warhol began to photographically document every aspect of his life from the people he met to graffiti on the streets. In 1986 he developed some of these images into what became known as his stitched photographs. Created by sewing several identical images together, these works are indebted to his early screenprints in their use of repetition and grid formation. He would often photograph and repeat seemingly ordinary objects and signs, such as this one advertising Sunday brunch. By doing this Warhol is emphasising the broader significance of the often dull, commonplace things we encounter on a daily basis.</p>

Online caption
2009-04-16T00:00:00
online-caption
ONLINE_CAPTION
advertising breakfast eating and drinking emotions, concepts and ideas formal qualities leisure and pastimes lifestyle and culture notice objects photographic popular culture reading, writing, printed matter repetition society