The late and legendary pop artist Andy Warhol reveals an overtly sexual side in his 1977 series “Torsos and Sex Parts,” a set of graphic screenprint portraits depicting fragments of male nudes. Recently showcased at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, this explicit series sheds light on an edgier dimension of a pioneer better known for innocent consumer imagery.
Centered on headless male torsos and closely cropped genitalia, the series makes no reservations about its fixation on the sensual male form. Created using an intricate, layered screenprinting process, the pieces are awash in garish hues ranging from scarlet to aquamarine to mustard yellow and milk chocolate brown. Some seemed bruised by color while others appear aglow under black light.
Warhol offers no background context or further bodily features—just isolated pelvises, flaccid penises and bare buttocks, positioned suggestively against negative space. The truncated views communicate raw carnal energy, representing desire itself rather than any single man.
While shocking to some critics, “Torsos and Sex Parts” proves Warhol was an avant-garde voice for the expression of queer sexuality long before such themes reached the contemporary mainstream. Though outside Warhol’s best-known repertoire, the series proves his relentless boundary-breaking vision, forever changing our conception of what art can be.
