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Lot Essay
"The Warhol 'Shoe' was a little token of love and appreciation from my father to my mother that he gave her in the mid fifties...My father walked in to our apartment on East 76th Street one evening on his return from a meeting at Vogue and after giving my mother a kiss, presented her with an envelope. Inside was the 'Shoe'. He told my delighted mother that he had had it cobbled together by a talented young illustrator in the art department at House and Garden...The 'Shoe' travelled back to England a couple of weeks later and was placed on my mother's dressing table next to the mirror. Later on it was framed and accompanied her to Tobago and then to New York by me following her death in 1988, where it was hung at the National Academy of Design, which was hosting an exhibition of my father's life's work. This return of the 'Shoe' to New York was fortunate: our house in Tobago burnt down the night before my return." (... Parkinson, talking to Rupert Maas, London ....)
That 'talented young illustrator' at House and Garden was of course Warhol. Before he found fame as the father of Pop Art, Warhol was an accomplished advertising illustrator and commercial artist for fashion tastemakers such as Barney's, Neiman Marcus, I. Miller, Glamour, Mademoiselle and Harper's Bazaar. This delicately beautiful, colourfully playful and hugely influential fashion illustration work from the 1950s included witty drawings - fanciful shoes, chic hats, smart suits and perfect accessories to match - and showcased his unique ability to find inspiration in the everyday and elevate the ordinary to the extraordinary. As Warhol famously commented, "When you think about it, department stores are kind of like museums."
In a career that spanned seven decades, Norman Parkinson (1913-1990) dazzled the world with his sparkling inventiveness as a fashion photographer. His long association with Vogue, and his numerous assignments for Harper's Bazaar, Town & Country and other international magazines, brought him worldwide recognition. His innovative style transformed the static, posed approach to fashion photography, while his enchanting, idiosyncratic persona charmed his sitters and projected an alluring and glamorous public image.
Many of the greatest icons of the twentieth century, as well as some of the world's most beautiful women, have been revealed through Parkinson's inimitable wit and style, and through his unique eye for glamour and beauty - his subjects included David Bowie, Montgomery Clift, Noël Coward, Ava Gardner Jerry Hall, Celia Hammond, Audrey Hepburn, Iman, Jan de Villeneuve, Bianca Jagger, Augustus John, Vivien Leigh, Twiggy, Raquel Welch.
Standing at six feet five inches tall, Parkinson was unable to remain unobtrusive behind the lens and instead created 'Parks', the moustachioed, ostentatiously elegant fashion photographer - as much a personality as those who sat for him. His flawless professionalism, and well-rehearsed eccentricities reassured the uneasy sitter and disarmed the experienced. 'Parks' reinvented himself for each decade of his career, from his ground-breaking spontaneous images of the 1930s, through the war years and the 'Swinging Sixties' to the exotic locations of the 1970s and 1980s.
By the end of his life (he died on location in 1990) he had become a household name, the recipient of a CBE, a photographer to the Royal Family, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, and the subject of a number of large-scale retrospectives, most recently Norman Parkinson: Portraits in Fashion at the National Portrait Gallery in 2005.
That 'talented young illustrator' at House and Garden was of course Warhol. Before he found fame as the father of Pop Art, Warhol was an accomplished advertising illustrator and commercial artist for fashion tastemakers such as Barney's, Neiman Marcus, I. Miller, Glamour, Mademoiselle and Harper's Bazaar. This delicately beautiful, colourfully playful and hugely influential fashion illustration work from the 1950s included witty drawings - fanciful shoes, chic hats, smart suits and perfect accessories to match - and showcased his unique ability to find inspiration in the everyday and elevate the ordinary to the extraordinary. As Warhol famously commented, "When you think about it, department stores are kind of like museums."
In a career that spanned seven decades, Norman Parkinson (1913-1990) dazzled the world with his sparkling inventiveness as a fashion photographer. His long association with Vogue, and his numerous assignments for Harper's Bazaar, Town & Country and other international magazines, brought him worldwide recognition. His innovative style transformed the static, posed approach to fashion photography, while his enchanting, idiosyncratic persona charmed his sitters and projected an alluring and glamorous public image.
Many of the greatest icons of the twentieth century, as well as some of the world's most beautiful women, have been revealed through Parkinson's inimitable wit and style, and through his unique eye for glamour and beauty - his subjects included David Bowie, Montgomery Clift, Noël Coward, Ava Gardner Jerry Hall, Celia Hammond, Audrey Hepburn, Iman, Jan de Villeneuve, Bianca Jagger, Augustus John, Vivien Leigh, Twiggy, Raquel Welch.
Standing at six feet five inches tall, Parkinson was unable to remain unobtrusive behind the lens and instead created 'Parks', the moustachioed, ostentatiously elegant fashion photographer - as much a personality as those who sat for him. His flawless professionalism, and well-rehearsed eccentricities reassured the uneasy sitter and disarmed the experienced. 'Parks' reinvented himself for each decade of his career, from his ground-breaking spontaneous images of the 1930s, through the war years and the 'Swinging Sixties' to the exotic locations of the 1970s and 1980s.
By the end of his life (he died on location in 1990) he had become a household name, the recipient of a CBE, a photographer to the Royal Family, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, and the subject of a number of large-scale retrospectives, most recently Norman Parkinson: Portraits in Fashion at the National Portrait Gallery in 2005.