Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board Brillo Box

Discussion in the media during 2007 concerning Andy Warhols’ Brillo boxes and concerns regarding their manufacture and permission of the artist has led Moderna Museet to examine the available Brillo boxes. The museum has looked at those in its own collection and borrowed from private collectors in Stockholm and southern Sweden. 
Some of those examined are from 1968 when a few boxes where constructed in connection with the Andy Warhol exhibition. These boxes are, according to records and catalogue texts, constructed with the permission of the artist. Boxes from 1990 have also been examined when 105 boxes where constructed for an exhibition in Leningrad. This was three years after the death of Andy Warhol. As a reference a cardboard (corrugated fibreboard) box has also been looked at which was made as part of the exhibition staging in Stockholm, 1968.


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The following Brillo boxes have been examined:

1. 6 wood boxes donated by Pontus Hultén to Moderna Museet in 1995. Five are numbered in pencil on the underside with the following: 4, 35, 66, 70, 85. The size of each box is 44.4 x 44.2 x 36.2 cm (Height x depth x width). 

2. 1 box of cardboard (corrugated fibreboard) belonging to the archive of Moderna Museet. Size 43.6 x 44.3 x 36.2 cm. 

3. 1 wood box on loan from a private collector, Stockholm. Size 44.4 x 44.3 x 36 cm. 

4. 1 wood box on loan from a private collector, Stockholm. Size 44 x 44.2 x 36.4 cm. 

5. 1 wood box from a private collection, examined in southern Sweden. Signed A.W. Size 43.9 x 43.9 x 36.1 cm. 

Numbers 1 and 3.

The boxes are constructed from particleboard which appears to be painted with a roller with a waterbased acrylic paint, directly on the surface without a ground. The surface has a typical textured appearance from the roller. The edges reveal the thickness of the particleboard as 1 cm. The colour is clean white, nearest to NCS 0500. 

Numbers 4 and 5.

Number 5 has an edge damage through which it is possible to determine that it is constructed of particleboard. The board seems to be bevel-edged into 45 degrees before the box was put together. A ground has been applied, sanded and smoothed and then painted with a brush in oil paint, leaving a soft and even surface. The colour is off-white, nearest to NCS 0502-Y. Number 5 is signed A.W. (see image above). 

Number 2.

Corrugated fibreboard box, used in the Warhol exhibition at Moderna Museet in 1968. The top and underside have been joined with fabric tape a number of times. The tape has aged better than the cardboard which has yellowed. The design differs slightly between the wooden boxes and the fibreboard, which is as follows:- On the top is a square with ‘Ship↓to’ and on the underside is ‘Brillo soap pads’ on one half and on the other ‘Alton Box Board Co, Long Island City, NY’ with information on the boxes life expectancy. 

Number 2 was a part of the 1968 Andy Warhol exhibition organised by Moderna Museet. Numbers 4 and 5 were made in the spring of 1968 in Stockholm. According to Olle Granath and Ulf Linde, both involved in the exhibition preparations, approximately 15 boxes were made with the permission of Andy Warhol at that time. 

Numbers 1 and 3 are later copies made for an exhibition in Leningrad (St Petersburg) in 1990. For this exhibition 105 boxes were constructed. 

Although boxes made in 1964 remain to be examined, conclusions can still be drawn at the present time. There are strong indications that the boxes from 1968 are constructed with the express permission of Andy Warhol and therefore should continue to be referred to as Andy Warhols Brillo boxes, Stockholm type. It is interesting that one of the boxes has the signature A.W. This signature needs to be analyzed by experts from the Andy Warhol Authentication Board. The boxes from 1990 should be seen as copies/exhibition material which was the reason for their construction. These boxes are not authorised by the artist and should be removed from the official list of Andy Warhols Brillo boxes. 

As a result of this paper, and if Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board Inc, does not come to another conclusion, the Moderna Museet will re-catalogue the 6 boxes presently in the collection as copies/exhibition material. 



Lars Nittve

Director 

Lars Byström

why, after Olle Granath is thanked in the Warhol catalogue raisonne vol two for his help, the only help which he gave is describing the 1968 show he co-curated and the fact that the 105 wooden boxes were made after Warhol's death, the board and the editors of the catalogue raisonne authenticated them? Paul Morrissey had pointed this out to them as well, even the fact that they were omitted from the exhibition catalogue, yet they seemed to ignore him as well.

Box number 721.11, examined and authenticated by the board in 1995 is owned by Lord palumbo, who was the director of the Warhol foundation at the time. Olle Granath was contacted by the board that year, yet they ignored his description of the boxes having been made in 1990. Many other dealers and collectors close to the foundation own these boxes, last sales price April 2007 approx $150,000.

With the Pasadena Type Brillo Boxes, according to page 57 of vol 2 of the catalogue raisonne, Warhol allowed by letter to a third party  for 100 boxes to be made off site by a local printer and without any instructions, silkscreens or involvement from warhol as long as all of these boxes were to remain with the pasadena art museum.  these boxes were a wholly different size to anything Warhol made. According to the same catalogue raisonne, page 86, although warhol's instructions to the third party were quite clear, an extra addition of these offsite "sculptures" were made by the same local printer, evidently without any involvement from Warhol and are currently owned by dealers important to the Warhol Foundation.