Andy Warhol’s Electric Chair (FS II.79) is a haunting work from his Death and Disaster series, created in 1971. In this screenprint, Warhol presents an empty electric chair in a stark, vacant execution chamber—silent, sterile, and unsettling. The image is based on a press photograph from New York’s Sing Sing prison, where the electric chair was once used.
Using his signature screenprinting technique, Warhol repeats this grim subject across multiple colorways, with FS II.79 featuring a subdued palette that contrasts the image’s violent implications. The disconnect between the vibrant pop aesthetic and the subject matter creates a chilling emotional tension. Warhol does not show the moment of execution—instead, he focuses on the absence, evoking a lingering, silent presence of death.
With Electric Chair, Warhol confronts the viewer with society’s relationship to death, violence, and media spectacle. He transforms an image of institutionalized death into a reflection on morality, desensitization, and the way images of tragedy are circulated and consumed.
Far from sensationalist, Electric Chair (FS II.79) stands as one of Warhol’s most provocative and meditative works—unflinching in its portrayal of mortality and the cold machinery of justice.