Andy Warhol (American, 1928–1987)
Shoe, circa 1955
Watercolor on wove paper
8 ½ × 12 ½ in. (21.6 × 31.8 cm)
Stamped by The Estate of Andy Warhol and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., New York
Framed
Provenance:
Private Collection, New York
Private Collection, Switzerland
Price: €52,500 EUR + shipping (VAT if applicable)
Long before Andy Warhol transformed Campbell’s Soup cans, Coca-Cola bottles and Hollywood celebrities into icons of Pop Art, he was one of New York’s most successful commercial illustrators. Arriving in Manhattan in 1949, Warhol quickly established himself in the worlds of fashion and advertising, with his elegant and inventive drawings of women’s shoes becoming particularly associated with his early career.
Executed circa 1955, Shoe comes from this formative and increasingly collectible period. The delicately articulated high heel is unmistakably Warhol: sophisticated yet whimsical, turning an ordinary commercial object into something glamorous and desirable.
In retrospect, Warhol’s fascination with shoes seems remarkably prophetic. The themes that would dominate his mature career—fashion, commerce, celebrity, repetition and the transformation of consumer objects into cultural icons—were already taking shape in these intimate works of the 1950s.
Unlike Warhol’s later prints and portfolios, Shoe is a unique work on paper, offering a particularly personal glimpse into the development of an artist who would soon fundamentally change the course of twentieth-century art.
The work bears stamps from both The Estate of Andy Warhol and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., New York, and comes with provenance through private collections in New York and Switzerland.
