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Lot Essay
Throughout his life Warhol was fascinated by and surrounded himself with cats. In his apartment on Lexington Avenue "he had something like nine cats," said his close friend Ted Carey. "In the bedroom [he] had a gold antique Louis XV bed, very ornate, with a tiger-skin throw rug... and cats!," said George Hartman, another friend. (quoted in P.S. Smith, Warhol: Conversations about the Artist, Ann Arbor, 1988, pp. 86 and 119).
In the 1950s Warhol published his book of illustrations 25 Cats Named Sam and One Blue Pussy with Charles Lisanby, and made numerous drawings and watercolors of his feline friends. These charming portraits reach a high-note in Golden Cat, the most important of his works in this genre and the only one executed in gold leaf. With the regal extravagance of its crowned and bejeweled subject, lavished under fanciful brocade and trimmings, the work achieves an iconic status along with other major works of the fifties, notably Warhol's series of golden shoes, created the same year. Like the shoes, Golden Cat is a key example of Warhol's personal and fanciful approach to image-making during the pre-Pop period.
Golden Cat is contained in the original wooden frame selected by Warhol.
In the 1950s Warhol published his book of illustrations 25 Cats Named Sam and One Blue Pussy with Charles Lisanby, and made numerous drawings and watercolors of his feline friends. These charming portraits reach a high-note in Golden Cat, the most important of his works in this genre and the only one executed in gold leaf. With the regal extravagance of its crowned and bejeweled subject, lavished under fanciful brocade and trimmings, the work achieves an iconic status along with other major works of the fifties, notably Warhol's series of golden shoes, created the same year. Like the shoes, Golden Cat is a key example of Warhol's personal and fanciful approach to image-making during the pre-Pop period.
Golden Cat is contained in the original wooden frame selected by Warhol.