The all new 36MM Multicolored Laquer Dial "Jubilee Motif" dial Rolex Oyster Perpetual is getting a lot of attention based upon its striking PoP Art dial, and I am going to go out on a limb my nicknaming it "The Warhol". Just like, The Pepsi GMT, The Coke GMT, The Batman GMT, The RootBeer GMT,The Kermit Submariner, The Hulk Submariner, etc.—you get the idea.
When I say this new Rolex model has Pop Art vibe, it totally reminds me of Andy Warhol's PoP Art. In the photo below we see Andy Warhol with his Protoge, Jean-Micel Basquiat, and we see Andy rocking his ladies 28MM yellow gold Datejust on a President Bracelet.
Andy Warhol pictured above wearing his Rolex Datejust with Protégé, Jean-Michel Basquait
The color palette of the new Rolex dial totally reminds me of Jean-Michel Basquait's masterpiece which is pictured below
"Untitled," 1982 Jean-Michel Basquiat Painting sold for $110.5 Million on May 18, 2017
The new dial also reminds me very much of the repetitive square grid of Andy Warhol's pop art, like with his famous Marilyn print grid layouts as pictured below.
Repetitive Grid alignment was a trademark of Andy Warhol, which is a fascinating way to layout artwork, as his original inspiration was that of comic books.
The all new 36MM Multicolored Laquer Dial "Jubilee Motif" dial Oyster Perpetual is getting a lot of attention based upon its striking PoP Art dial. Rolex said their inspiration for the lacquered dial was the from "the Jubilee motif introduced at the end of the 1970s, which has since become iconic".
One More Thang
Our Captain Danny, who publishes Coronet.org shared this image with me from the Screw Down Crown Newsletter, which might provide another clue as to the genesis or inspiration behind the colorway grid design, which is a blanket, made by Artist Alighiero Boetti. Alighiero Boetti was a 20th century Italian conceptual artist, and was also a member of the Arte Povera movement.
Boetti was famous for a series of embroidered maps of the world, “Mappa,” created between 1971 and his death in 1994, and also created the embroidery pictured above in 1988 which looks very similar to the dial on the new Rolex OP model.
The image above depicts what a scaled version of Boetti's artwork would look like when matched with the dial size of the Rolex Oyster, which looks remarkably similar.
This all new Rolex dial design from Rolex is achieved with a ten color laquering process, as pictured below, which illustrates how Rolex starts with a blank dial, then applies each of the successive ten colors, starting with gold, then adding aqua blue, then red, then orange, then green, then adding a second shade of blue, then adding a second shade of green, then purple, then black, then a second shade of black:
Rolex Jubilee
Guilloché Dial Inspiration
As mentioned, the all new Multicolored Rolex Lacquer Dial with the Jubilee Motif was inspired by Rolex's original Jubilee Motif dials which incorporated a Guilloché engraving design.
Rolex began making the original Rolex Jubilee dials back in the late 1970s and in 1985 to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Datejust, by engraving solid gold disk dials with the "ROLEX" logo monogram.
In the photo below we see the Rolex dial Guilloché process taking place. The way it works, is the Guilloché master engraving disk is located on the left side in the photo below, and it has the master pattern that is being engraved in miniature scale on the gold Rolex dial which we see located on the right side in the center of the engraving apparatus.
I will NEVER forget, that when the four of us (pictured below) were touring the Rolex factories in Switzerland, the Rolex Public Relations representatives told us not to touch the Guilloché machine, while it was running in front of us, as doing so would cause the machine to fail, and Arial Adams, from A Blog To Watch, reached out and touched the machine anyway, and messed up the engraving, which was so bizarre!?!!
I mean somebody tells you specifically NOT to do something, and you do it anyway, which was like the Spiros Antonapoulous character in opening scene from the 1968 classic Alan Arkin movie: "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter", who walks by the local bakery and sees tasty deserts in the window, and uncontrollably decides to break the glass to get to the desert since it looks so intriguing to him. Below is a picture of Ben Clymer, James Dowling, Ariel Adams and myself visiting the Rolex Wonka Works in Switzerland back in 2013.
Benjamin Clymer, James Dowling, Ariel Adams, and Jake Ehrlich
November 19, 2013 Rolex Factories Tour in Bienne/Biel, Switzerland
(Hodinkee.com, Timezone.com, ABlogToWatch.com, and RolexMagazine.com)
Historically Rolex has always been extremely secretive and discreet, and no journalists in the past have ever been invited "INSIDE ROLEX" to explore and report on all four Rolex Manufacturing faclities in Switzerland.
In November 2013, this changed when Rolex invited Jake to take an unprecdented journey into the heart of Rolex to learn and report on everything he witnessed and learned.
This Super-Detailed 3 Part Story is a "MUST READ" story for anybody who wants to understand what really makes Rolex tick.
