FIRST Exhibition Catalogue 1948 ($15 WARHOL)
A very rare piece of Andy Warhol memorabilia including the work of (then Carnegie Tech student) Andrew Warhol in The Associated Artists of Pittsburgh Exhibition at Carnegie Institute in 1948,
This is the first exhibition catalog that Warhol was included in. Warhol’s entry I Like Dance is now in the collection of The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh PA. Other notable artists in the exhibition include: Philip Pearlstein, Janet DeCoux, and Samuel Rosenberg,
5-1/4 x 6-1/2 in. (13.3 × 16.5 cm)
The show regularly was dominated by Carnegie Tech faculty, alumni, and students, and Andy had been represented in it for the first time in 1948 by the painting, I Like Dance, and a print, Dance in Black and White, the former featuring an unusual harlequin figure and a homemade frame of unfinished wood. In both 1948 and 1949 the artist listed his name as ‘Andrew Warhol’ when presenting his entries.
Historically, the catalog confirms that Warhol had removed the “a” from his last name before moving to New York City.
When Warhol entered the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) as a freshman in 1945, Andrew Warhola embarked on the formal road to what would become one of the most celebrated art careers of the 20th-century.
Warhol’s involvement with the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh—a group of regional artists - was both positive and negative to the young artist. In 1948, two of Warhol’s works were selected for inclusion in the AAP’s annual juried show, a painting titled I Like Dance and a print titled Dance in Black and White. The titles alone show Warhol’s great interest in dance—and in fact he once said that he would rather have been a ballerina than an artist—but unfortunately, his fellow members of the Modern Dance Club thought that Warhol’s skills would best be utilized in designing the group’s programs in lieu of him actually taking to the stage. His important Dance Diagram paintings from the early 1960s would ultimately find their inspiration in Warhol’s early forays into the subject.
Within weeks of graduating from Carnegie Tech, Warhol and fellow classmate Phillip Pearlstein departed Pittsburgh and moved to New York City, where over the course of their decades-long careers, both would rise to the upper echelons of the art world establishment. Warhol’s formative years soaking in the art of commercial illustration would indeed serve him well, first as the most celebrated graphic artist of the 1950s and later on as one of the pioneers of the Pop Art movement of the early 1960s.
Photos (NOT in this catalog but shown here for reference)
Condition:
Excellent- Binding is tight, no torn or missing pages. Foxing spots and writing in pencil on several pages (See photos). Many black and white photos inside but none featuring Warhol’s work.
Provenance:
Private Collection, PA
Hemphill Collection, NY
SECOND Exhibition Catalogue 1949
($100 WARHOL)
Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, 39th Annual Exhibition catalog, 1949, Carnegie Institute.
This is the second ever exhibition catalog to include work by Andy Warhol. His painting "I'm a Bird and When I Fly" is listed in the oil paintings section for $100.00, under the name Andrew Warhol. At the time, Andy was a senior in the art department of Carnegie Institute of Technology. His first ever exhibition catalog was for the previous year's AAP show.
Softcover, staplebound wraps. Includes black and white illustrations of the prize-winning pieces (unfortunately not Warhol's). Measures 6.5 x 5 inches. 78 pp.
Very Good condition: clean and unmarked contents; secure binding; covers with moderate soiling and handling.
Other artists with work in this catalog include Balcomb Greene, Dorothy Cantor, Philip Pearlstein, Samuel Rosenberg, Louise Pershing, Robert Lepper, Leonard Lieb, Virgil and Lucille Cantini, and many others. George Grosz was one of the 5 jury members.
In an oral history of Warhol's early years, artist and art historian Bennard Perlman remembers, "Andy now resurrected one of his earlier drawings for a boy picking his nose and turned it into a painting in which one nostril of a pronounced proboscis, thrust in to the viewer’s face, is jabbed by the subject’s forefinger. He titled it The Broad Gave Me My Face, But I Can Pick My Own Nose and, together with an oil titled I’m a Bird When I Fly, submitted it to the 39th Annual Exhibition of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh in January 1949. The show regularly was dominated by Carnegie Tech faculty, alumni, and students, and Andy had been represented in it for the first time the previous year by the painting, I Like Dance, and a print, Dance in Black and White, the former featuring an unusual harlequin figure and a homemade frame of unfinished wood. In both 1948 and 1949 the artist listed his name as ‘Andrew Warhol’ when presenting his entries."