Summary: Warren Perry, researcher at NPG, discusses Andy Warhol's portrait of Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson rocketed to fame-first with his brothers, the Jackson 5, whose first four singles (including "ABC" and "I Want You Back") topped the charts in 1970-and then through solo albums. Jackson was clearly one of the biggest pop stars of the 1980s, and his album Thriller (1982) was a huge popular and critical success, winning an unprecedented eight Grammy Awards. In 1984, when Time magazine commissioned Andy Warhol to make Jackson's portrait, the slightly built dancer and singer was at the height of his fame, and Warhol was the perfect choice to transform Jackson into a pop celebrity icon. The then-twenty-six-year-old star is preserved by Warhol, even though this image had been replaced in the public mind, until the singer's 2009 death, by his masklike visage. Recorded at NPG, October 14, 2010 Image: Michael Jackson / Andy Warhol / Synthetic polymer and silkscreen on canvas, 1984 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time magazine; copyright Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / ARS, New York
