Koller View 2/22

5 Preview of the Post War & Contemporary Art auction on 30 June 2022 Warhol’s cat with character One of Andy Warhol’s obsessions was pets, espe- cially cats and dogs. He grew up with his mother Julia Warhola’s many cats in their Carnegie Hill townhouse. Warhol’s first artist’s book was published in 1954 and contained a collection of 25 cat portraits, followed a bit later by another, ‘Holy Cats’. In 1973 Warhol acquired Archie the dachshund, who was his faithful companion at openings, press conferences and parties for many years. In the mid-1970s, the Pop Artist once again turned to this subject, creating 72 paintings and some 45 draw- ings of animals, most of them commissioned by their owners. The precursors of the series which later be- came famous as ‘Cats and Dogs’ were two drawings of the cocker spaniel Ginger commissioned by the collector Peter Brant. Warhol used black-and-white photographs of the animals to make these paintings. While the dachshunds Archie and Amos wereWarhol’s own pets, and the dogs Cuba and Danger belonged to friends of his, three models remain unidentified, in- cluding the cat in the present work. ‘Cats and Dogs (Broadway)’ is one of only six large-format cat paint- ings byWarhol. It has been in a Dutch private collection for almost half a century (ill. 1). In this image, the cat Broadway watches warily over her surroundings with large eyes. In a crouched pos- ture, the animal’s body seems tense, ready to pounce at any moment. The white markings and al- mond-shaped eyes breathe life into the cat, while the violet and cobalt blue hues blend with the mint green background. The ordinary domestic cat undergoes a metamorphosis on the can- vas thanks to Warhol’s artis- tic adaptation and appears here as a personality with strong character. John Wesley was also an American Pop Artist. In his early paintings he employed fictitious stamps and seals before turning to a visual language inspired by cartoons. Unlike cartoons though, his palette is lim- ited to three or four colours, and his two-dimension- al painting style is reminiscent of Minimalist com- positions or Manga comics. In the three-coloured gouache with the cryptic title ‘July 7’ being offered on 30 June, three geishas look over their shoulders (ill. 2). The viewer sees the half-profile of these three identi- cal Japanese women, whose black hair unites to form a flat stripe at the upper edge of the picture. 2 3 4 © 2022, ProLitteris, Zurich © Karel Appel Foundation / 2022, ProLitteris, Zurich für