Lot Essay
After creating his famed Endangered Species series, where he famously appropriated the iconography of his celebrity portraits to depict animals, Warhol illustrated the book Vanishing Animals by Kurt Benirschke. Before each chapter in Vanishing Animals, Warhol illustrated a portrait of fifteen animals. The inspiration of animals as subject matter signaled Warhol's interest in the plight of endangered species in the 1980s.