In 1981 Andy Warhol was embarking on a new series of large screen prints, Myths. Warhol’s obsession with famous image for this series took a turn to things that were culturally iconic like Father Christmas, Dracula and Superman. After meeting Hamilton one evening at the NYC Met Opera, he invited the star of Wizard of Oz, Margaret Hamilton to the factory, his New York studio to re-enact her famous role as the Wicked Witch of the West for the print The Witch.
I saw Margaret Hamilton , the witch from the Wizard of Oz, it was exciting, and I went over and said she was wonderful. Now she’s doing commercials for Maxwell House. She is really petite.
Andy Warhol Diaries, 1980.
Hamilton arrived at the Factory and a make up artist applied some make up, while Warhol took many photographs to see how he wanted the images to look. These polaroids were laid on a table and they both picked their favourites from the selection.
In the photograph above, a pile of screen prints of Debby Harry can be seen stacked up against the wall. The original polaroid is below.
Here in this contact sheet we can see Hamilton and Warhol reviewing the Polaroids on a table.
Then more images were taken with a film real camera of Hamilton, maybe by an assistant of Warhols. But in the end he used the still from the polaroid below.
