No. The original photographer licensed the image for the use of the magazine issue publication, which included a Warhol colourization. There was no understanding that the photographer was selling the rights to the image permanently.
I'd like to know what you find transformative about the Prince Warhol prints. They seem more-or-less slapped out, from my point of view - maybe even done completely by an employee (of which Warhol had numerous who did his silkscreens). The photo itself is pretty lame, in my opinion, and the silkscreens don't show much in the way of inspiration.
It's difficult to say anything definitively about the Warhol photographs because, just by association with other Warhol products, they gain an amount of credibility (or total lack thereof, depending who you ask). The Warhol Marilyn silkscreens and the Elvis silkscreens have more weight than these Prince ones, simply because of just how enormous those people were in the broader culture (way, way bigger than Prince). A more iconic photo of Prince may have actually been transformative - but this photo is pretty bland milquetoast.
You miss the point of, Warhol.
His work is overblown, even mundane to many, but it is transformative, in that it reflected a great social change, in that it appealed to a huge number of people, who had seen "traditional 'art'" and more recently, abstraction, minimalism, surrealism, conceptual, etc, movements, as over serious, too intellectual, even only credible to fine art "experts", who, like the National academies, took it on to be "final word" on what was 'worthy' and 'acceptable' in "art", a very narrow window subjected to stale, tired limitations, too often judged by jealous artists, whom tolerated very little change to the S.O.P
they had come up from and now enforced by their limited vision.
No longer was the art world centered in Europa, but America, vibrant, powerful, a still growing concern, populated by people, finding their own voices, particularly the young, creative people whom wanted "different" and "more" than what went before.
POP Art appealed to many folks and, Warhol, offered up blown up images, coloured in unrealistic hues, of popular icons, often still living, popular I. the public eye, fun and self-mockingly, a sly wink from the artist that envisioned them.
Those photographs can no be judged, then or now, on the merits of realistic photography, because they were, intentionally, never intended to be a serious photographic depiction of life as it is, but rather, a fun, tongue and cheek interpretation of art for the "cool, hip, population" youth whom wanted their own tailored sarcasm and ideas of art, of their own.
This is my interpretation of Warhol, who, ironically, wanted to be acknowledged as an artist of serious repute, as cool and hip as the people who vied to be seen at his socal events, where he ruled supreme.
As far as having others bringing his conceptual arts to fruition, no one today really kicks up a fuss that many, many "classic" Old Masters had studios of other artists making major contributions to their most famous finished art, which bore only their name.
Warhol, was the singular nexis of the 'begining' and the 'end' of his art, and what came in-between, a curious footnote that many do no see at all.
IMO
