Cowley Abbott’s Fall International Art Auction Features Multiple Important Works by the Twentieth Century Icon

“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art”.

-Andy Warhol

The candid Press Release from Ronald Feldman Fine Arts in 1981 for the exhibition of Warhol’s Myths Series, invites the public to the opening on Saturday, September 12^th.  It goes onto state which characters are included in the series and that they were derived from original photographs Warhol took of actors he hired or acquaintances portraying each character. 

The Press Release goes onto say “They represent fantasies, dreams, hopes and fears.”

It is interesting that Warhol choose these characters and included himself as “The Shadow”, the last print in the series. The Myth Series is now one of the most discussed and written about collection of prints by Andy Warhol.

Cowley Abbot is pleased to offer two works from this iconic series, both consigned from an Important Private Collection. Howdy Doody was one of the first television shows to be shown in colour and apparently the show was used to sell color television sets in the 1950s. Like the other characters from the series the image of Howdy Doody was not appropriated from the media but was based on a photograph that Warhol took of the puppet.

The second work we are offering from Myths is Mammy. Not a character from a specific story, but she is a character that can be seen in various forms of popular culture. Warhol photographed Sylvia Williams, who was the former director of the National Museum of African American Art at the Smithsonian, in the role of the maternal figure.

Also included in the auction are a further two works by Andy Warhol, both inspired by women he adored. Marilyn Monroe I Love Your Kiss Forever Forever 1964 is from the unsigned edition of 2000 issued in an unbound book entitled “1cent Life”. The book was compiled by Walasse Ting and Sam Francis. This work was adapted from a painting Warhol did of Marilyn Monroe’s lips in 1962 and incorporates the poem “Jade White Butterfly” by Walasse Ting.

Cowley Abbott is pleased to have been entrusted with these renowned works for auction. The entire Fall Auction of International Art can be viewed by following this link.

Literature: “Press Release for Andy Warhol’s ‘Myths’”, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, September 1^st, 1981 [online publication]