Chris Evert - portrait

Tennis fans might recognize the woman in this grid of repeated faces. She is Chris Evert, one of the greatest players the sport has ever seen, captured here by Andy Warhol in 1977 when she was at the top of her game. Warhol took a single photograph and reproduced it fifteen times, switching up the colors and backgrounds so that no two panels look quite the same. You can spot her tennis racket peeking through the layers, a quiet reminder of why she was famous in the first place.

This piece comes from Warhol's long fascination with celebrity and the idea that fame turns people into images we see over and over again. By the 1970s he had already made his name silkscreening icons like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis, and he often took commissions to portray famous athletes, musicians, and socialites in the same style. The loose brushwork and bright washes of green, pink, and blue give each version its own mood, almost like flipping through different photographs of the same moment. It is a playful look at how repetition can make a face feel both familiar and strange at the same time.