(Pittsburgh, 1928 – New York, 1987)
Nude with Shells, Circa 1957
Black ballpoint pen on paper
Bears on the back the stamps
- The Estate of Andy Warhol
- The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
and the handwritten number VF 205.021
43.6 x 35.9 cm
Work from the Pre-Pop period, circa 1957
Provenance :
- Andy Warhol Estate, New York
- The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, New York
Exhibitions :
- Andy Warhol Now, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, December 12, 2020 to June 13, 2021
- Andy Warhol, Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), Toronto, July 17 - October 24, 2021
- Andy Warhol, Aspen Art Museum, November 23, 2021 to March 27, 2022
Literature :
- Andy Warhol Now by Yilmaz Dziewior and Gregor Muir, exhibition catalog at Museum Ludwig, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne, 2020, described on p. 212
- Andy Warhol Love, Sex & Desire, Drawings 1950-1962 by Blake Gopnik, Drew Zeiba, foreword by Michael Dayton Hermann, ed. Taschen, Cologne, 2020, reproduced in color on p. 235
- Listed in Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné in preparation by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
Before becoming the major artist of Pop Art, Andy WARHOL made several series of drawings with a ballpoint pen or fountain pen that revealed his great sensitivity as a draftsman. In the mid-fifties, WARHOL's style was already very assertive and was characterized by pure line and by the synthesis of the subject reduced to the essential. The details are eliminated, the line is clear and unrepentant. In these linear drawings, WARHOL was inspired by both the technique and style of Matisse and Cocteau whom he admired.
Throughout his life, WARHOL was fascinated by the male body in his drawings, silkscreens, acrylics, Polaroids and most of his film work. This attraction is particularly evident in his linear drawings of the mid-fifties, which have as subjects young men from his entourage or anatomies of the male body.
In 1956, WARHOL held one of his first solo exhibitions of drawings in New York at the Bodley Gallery, which he entitled Drawings for a Boy Book. The drawings from this period have a delicacy and tenderness that is unique in the artist's work and are among his most personal and sensual.