Unknown Masterpieces brought to light! - 2
As we have mentioned before, Fister was looking through his old Family Album recently, and found these interesting and previously unknown masterpieces. We have assembled a collection of some of the best of them and are proud to be able to present them for the very first time to the public, together with a short explanation from Fister.
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol was a thoroughly modern guy, but he liked the good old fashioned virtues of cats. He was born in 1928 in Pittsburgh and studied pictorial design at Carnegie Institute of Technology from 1945-49. He then went to New York City and became an illustrator until 1960 when he began making paintings based on comic strip characters such as Popeye, Dick Tracy, and Superman.
In 1952, his mother Julia had moved in with him in New York, partly to take care of her son who was living in "a dirty, mouse-and louse-ridden" apartment and "subsisting largely on candy and cake". It was probably at about this time that Fisters’ cousin Bud picked up on a good thing and moved in with them.
Around 1953-1955, Warhole worked for a theater group on the Lower East Side. He published several books, including Twenty Five Cats Named Sam, and One Blue Pussy. This, it is presumed, indicates the great impression that Bud had made on him.
In 1961, Andy did his first serial work with Campbell's soup cans, the subject for which he is most famous. He came closer to his wishes of working "like a machine" , when he found his permanent studio, "The Factory", in 1963.
Bud liked to live his life on the edge, and quickly found the wild late night catnip orgies and hair spray sniffing at “The Factory” much to his liking and participated with great vigour. But this decadent lifestyle soon took its toll, and he realised that he would have to straighten up a bit. Andy hadn’t been painting any more soup cans in that period, but when Buddy asked him to paint a picture that would “make me feel hungry”. This was the result:
Cream of Mouse Soup Can (1963?)
Andy Warhole (1828-1987)
Pop Art. Canvas 724 x 554mm (28 1/2 x 20")
(Private collection - Copenhagen)
In 1964, Warhol had his first solo exhibition in Europe, held at the Galerie Ileana Sonnebend in Paris, featuring the Flower series. It is possible that Bud and the painting were with him there, but there is some mystery as to what happened after that. When he returned to America, both the cat and the painting had disappeared. It is presumed that this original Warhol was the one smuggled out of the United States in the mid sixties, ending up in a private collection in Scandinavia.
Fisters curator
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