In a striking presentation, Andy Warhol depicted one of the most famous German poets of all time - Goethe, with the distinctive hat as depicted by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein around 1786/87 in the painting "Goethe in der Campagna". Warhol took him out of the scenic setting in the painting and transplanted the great poet into the squared form of his silkscreen print. Rendered in bright colors and using striking contour lines, Goethe joins the ranks of the numerous celebrities portrayed by Warhol. In this particular case, the celebrated American artist succeeds in reinterpreting what until then had probably been the most popular Goethe portrait. Warhol turned the Tischbein work into an inimitable statement of pop art .
The close connection with German art and cultural becomes particularly obvious in this context, not only because of the choice of motif, but also because of its genesis: When Andy Warhol visited the Städel Museum in Frankfurt in 1980 together with the publisher Siegfried Unseld, they were asked to stand in front of the Tischbein. Upon this occasion, Unseld is said to have encouraged the pop artist to adapt the motif for his own work.