As a series Warhol began early in his career, his Cow wallpapers serve as a preliminary declaration of the artist’s creative ethos: a subversion of the historical canon and an embrace of commercial art forms by rendering repetitive imagery in unnaturally vibrant hues. Warhol recalled the impetus for these prints, starting with a flippant conversation with art dealer Ivan Karp:
“Another time he said, ‘why don’t you paint some cows, they’re so wonderfully pastoral and such a durable image in the history of the arts.”—Andy Warhol
[Left] Hugh R. Hopgood, Cattle, A.D. 1914–1916; original ca. 1427–1400 B.C., tempera on paper. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1930, 30.4.70.
[Right] Jacob van Strij, Landscape with Cattle, ca. 1800, oi on wood. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Marquand Collection, Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1890, 91.26.8Of course, under Warhol’s command, the once-quaint cow becomes anything but pastoral, adding a new, Pop layer to the subject’s artistic lineage. Factory assistant Gerard Malanga found the source image in an agricultural magazine – in which the chosen cow is described to “possess quality and refinement” – Warhol elevates the humble genre painting subject. By removing the context of a bucolic 19th century field or the grounds of a county fair, Warhol gives the cow star power through the same treatment he would later exercise in his portraiture of Marilyn Monroe or Chairman Mao: seen from the neck up, overlaid with vivacious colors. Karp's exclamatory response that Warhol recollected embodies their blazingly bright essence:
“They're super-pastoral!”
—Ivan KarpSoon, spurred by Karp’s enthusiasm for the Cow, Warhol debuted the image at his 1966 exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery in New York. The artist covered an entire room of the gallery in large-scale, floor-to-ceiling wallpaper featuring the first iteration of Cow in shocking shade of neon pink and yellow. The nature of the wallpaper was a natural extension of his fascination with the repeated image in his paintings; the kitschy decorativeness transcended traditional avenues of printmaking and added an immersive element to the installation. In 1967, Warhol quipped to Mademoiselle magazine regarding his attraction to wallpaper as a medium: "I hate to see things on walls. Doing the whole room is OK, though."i Throughout his career, Warhol revisited the Cow wallpaper for later exhibitions, including the present print in a brown and blue scheme, which was published for Warhol’s 1971 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Two other color variants – yellow and blue, and pink and purple– were produced, with the pink-purple iteration being published for a 1976-77 exhibition at the Seattle Center’s Modern Art Pavilion.
i Quoted in Wayne Koestenbaum, Andy Warhol: A Biography, 2015, p. 110.
Literature
Frayda Feldman and Jörg Schellmann 11A
Artist Biography
Andy Warhol
American • 1928 - 1987
Andy Warhol was the leading exponent of the Pop Art movement in the U.S. in the 1960s. Following an early career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol achieved fame with his revolutionary series of silkscreened prints and paintings of familiar objects, such as Campbell's soup tins, and celebrities, such as Marilyn Monroe. Obsessed with popular culture, celebrity and advertising, Warhol created his slick, seemingly mass-produced images of everyday subject matter from his famed Factory studio in New York City. His use of mechanical methods of reproduction, notably the commercial technique of silk screening, wholly revolutionized art-making.
Working as an artist, but also director and producer, Warhol produced a number of avant-garde films in addition to managing the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground and founding Interview magazine. A central figure in the New York art scene until his untimely death in 1987, Warhol was notably also a mentor to such artists as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
155
Cow (F. & S. 11A)
1971
Screenprint in colors, on wallpaper, the full sheet.
S. 45 5/8 x 29 3/4 in. (115.9 x 75.6 cm)
From the unlimited edition (approximately 100 were signed in 1979), published by Factory Additions, New York, for the Andy Warhol Retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, framed.
Estimate
$4,000 - 6,000
Sold for $13,970
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Editions & Works on Paper
New York Auction 27 June 2024
