MUST RUN 11/16

‘ANDY WARHOL: FABULOUS FIFTIES’ ON VIEW AT WOODWARD GALLERY w/1 cut

avv/gs set 11/2 #718273

NEW YORK CITY — On view through December 29, Woodward Gallery presents “Andy Warhol: The Fabulous Fifties” — a rare perspective of the artist’s genuine illustrations on paper from half a century ago.

Woodward Gallery has gathered many rare, intimate examples of this historic period to challenge even the most Warhol savvy observer to reflect over the time before Warhol’s Pop success. To better understand Warhol, and his growth as a fine artist, one needs to consider his history and the evolution of his early work.

In college, Warhol was working out a style based on Ben Shahn, Paul Klee and Alexander Calder. His friends remembered him to be innately talented. He graduated from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1949 and moved to New York.

He came into his own in New York City in the 1950s. Warhol dramatically increased his earnings and accepted more design work than he could possibly handle by hiring assistants to complete his assignments — a revolutionary concept for the design world. Warhol drew anything and everything with equal ease. He was always out looking for more work and never seemed disinterested or unsure of how he would create those ads.

He made Christmas cards and stationery for Bergdorf’s, and even window display designs for Bonwit Teller and Tiffany, In 1955, he became the regular shoe illustrator for The New York Times. Being infatuated with celebrity, in 1952, he had his first show of drawings based on Truman Capote’s stories. He even drew Central Park from Capote’s apartment building.

In 1953–57, he created books as gifts: 25 Cats, A la Recherche du Shoe Perdu, In the Bottom of My Garden and The Gold Book. He would draw cherubs, young men and butterflies and had coloring parties to socialize with his commercial crowd and friends.

Woodward Gallery is at 133 Eldridge Street, ground floor. For information, 212-966-3411 or www.woodwardgallery.net.