Created in 1979, Andy Warhol’s screenprint, Peaches, from the Space Fruit: Still Lifes series, marks a pivotal moment in his artistic development, showcasing Warhol’s growing interest in light and shadow and demonstrating his innovative approach to visual representation.

The Space Fruit series emerges from Warhol’s fascination with transforming mundane objects into iconic imagery, a conceptual thread that runs through his Campbell’s Soup cans and Brillo boxes. He engage with the classical still life tradition whilst simultaneously subverting it through his distinctive Pop Art sensibility.

Here, the careful rendering of shadows signifies a deliberate shift in the artist’s practice from the flatness typically associated with his earlier works. Warhol’s creative process involved extensive experimentation, using photography as its foundation, and collage techniques and cut-outs to test various arrangements and colour combinations before settling on the final composition. This experimental approach allowed him to explore the relationship between the fruit and its shadows, ultimately deciding to render the shadows as prominent visual elements rather than subordinate compositional details. Warhol's interest in light, shadow, and spatial relationships in this piece makes it a direct precursor to his groundbreaking Shadows series, reflecting a transition towards pure abstraction.