Andy Warhol

Conspiracy Means to Breathe Together

About this artwork

Warhol created his first screenprint of an electric chair in 1963. Later in the sixties he returned to the imagery for a series of ‘Little Electric Chairs’, to which this image belongs. The source photograph was published in 1953 and shows the chair in New York State’s Sing Sing prison. Used for the final time in 1963, Warhol remarked that it seemed like a “typically American way to go”. The title of this group exhibition for charity at LoGuidice Gallery works especially well with Warhol’s image. Conspiracy derives from the Latin word ‘conspirare’, which literally means to breathe together. The exhibition organisers refer to the fact that this chair was used to execute American communists Ethel and Julius Rosenberg for conspiracy to commit espionage in 1953.

Updated before 2020

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  • artist:
    Andy Warhol (1928 - 1987) American
  • title:
    Conspiracy Means to Breathe Together
  • date created:
    1969
  • materials:
    Lithograph on paper
  • measurements:
    86.00 x 55.80 cm
  • object type:
  • credit line:
    ARTIST ROOMS National Galleries of Scotland and Tate. Acquired jointly through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and Art Fund, 2008
  • accession number:
    AR00323
  • gallery:
This artwork is part of Artist Rooms
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Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol