«1922-2022 diptych»

Albert Einstein received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. It was the 1921 prize, held back for a year, and it was awarded for his work on the photoelectric effect, not for relativity. The most famous scientist of the twentieth century won for something most people could not name. I keep coming back to that gap between the face everyone knows and the work almost nobody reads.

That gap is the starting point of this Einstein pop art diptych, 1922 to 2022, a hundred years.

The left half is black and white. Einstein's wild hair, one huge round eye and his moustache are built from small dots and strokes, and white chalk-like equations cover the black behind him. The right half is the same face turned loud: gold skin, red, blue and orange paint dragged thickly through the hair, a green moustache and a pink tongue stuck out, like the famous 1951 photograph. He wears black sunglasses with a gold medallion on the arm and a big round diamond stud at his ear. The equations turn to rainbow colours, and the variables become letters that look like luxury monograms. Both faces are cut into strips that slide apart.

Warhol painted Marilyn Diptych in 1962, colour on one side and fading black and white on the other. In 1980 he made an Einstein portrait for Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century. I borrowed the form from the first and the face from the second. The thin bars across the picture are a small bow to Mondrian.

My idea is simple. In 1922 a genius was famous for his mind. In 2022 even a genius gets sold through logos and sunglasses. I am not sure which half I like better, and I enjoy that. It is contemporary pop art with real paint thickness, the kind of statement wall art that makes a room smarter and louder at once.

Most of my original paintings are already in private collections, but I paint originals to order in any size. To ask about this one, message me on Instagram or by email.