Liz

Andy Warhol created this striking portrait of Elizabeth Taylor in 1963, back when she reigned as one of the biggest stars on the planet. He didn't work from life or even a fresh photograph. Instead, he pulled a publicity still straight from a movie studio's promo files and ran it through his silkscreen process, flattening the actress into bold blocks of color and sharp outlines. The fiery red backdrop, the swipe of green eyeshadow, and those glossy red lips read almost like cosmetics smeared right onto the surface. What many people miss is the timing: Warhol made this series while Taylor was gravely ill, when the world genuinely feared she might die. That worry hums beneath all the glamour, giving the image a soft edge of fragility.

Fame itself was Warhol's real subject. He was captivated by how celebrities got packaged, repeated, and consumed like soup cans or soda bottles, and he borrowed the very printing tricks that magazines and ads used to sell products. By doing so, he smudged the boundary between gallery art and everyday media. The colors here don't quite line up with the outlines, a slight misregistration that gives the piece its handmade warmth even as it mimics a machine. So while this is a picture of a specific woman, it works just as well as a picture of stardom, and the strange way we turn people into images.