Andy in Outline
Amid the glitz and Studio 54 mystique, it’s easy to forget that in the 1950s, well before the Factory—and certainly before Interview—Andy Warhol was a commercial illustrator and draftsman for the likes of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and McCall’s. In December, at Art Basel Miami Beach, the Upper East Side gallery L&M Arts will present more than 100 of these early Warhol drawings, alongside works he continued to ink over the next four decades. The pieces on view range from a playful watercolor cat created circa 1950 to 1955’s À la recherché du shoe perdu, the artist’s now famously whimsical “evening shoe” print. Thin-lined ballpoint-pen drawings of nude, lounging boys reveal a more vulnerable, and perhaps more carnal sides, while Welch’s Grape Juice (1985–1986) and a neon-hued Electric Chair (1978) bring not-so-subtle social criticism found in his screen prints. A catalogue with essays by Vincent Fremont, Eric Shiner, and Interview‘s chairman, Peter Brant, accompanies the exhibition.
